eatshowandtell » Blogger Meet Ups

The Food Bloggers Battle Royale Cook off

linda — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 01:44:14 +0000

In life, you meet many people, some you get along with, others you steer clear of. I guess this also applies to the blogosphere. Who would have thought that through the power of the internet, I was able to find a group of people who share common interests and really get along with.

Obviously our common interest is food, whether it be eating out or cooking at someone’s place, it’s the one thing that is gauranteed to bring everyone out of the woods. With Masterchef back on screen now, Billy, Ellie and myself organised a “cook off” with a twist, where a group of bloggers were invited to cook a dish each. However, this was not like any other cook off, it was ” The Battle Royale Cook off.”

Invitation- Designed by Billy

Of course with any challenges, there are rules which all participants must abide by:

Each person will be assigned one of two categories- Savoury or Dessert
For Savoury, you MUST use any form of “fruit” in your dish.
For Dessert, you MUST use any form of “vegetable” in your dish.
Each person will prepare their dishes at home and bring it to the party.

Scoring

Each person must blind taste and score all dishes, except his/her own.
Each dish will be scored on its presentation and flavours
Scores between 1 to 10, 1= lowest, 10= heighest.

Attendees

With this in mind, our small group got cracking, with some people brainstorming ideas from the start while others were quite cruisy, whipping up something last minute. What did we come up with ?

Savoury

Ellie: twice-cooked orange salt rub pork belly with toffee-crisp crackling, caramelised cherry and brandy glaze, potato and apple mash with smoked bacon and savoy cabbage with smoky bacon.

Minh: Pumpkin soup with port melon and vanilla creme fraiche

Richard: Melon Triplets Salmon Tartare

Simon: Korean fried chicken - twice fried chicken thigh pieces with a pineapple chili sauce

Helen: pork ribs marinated in lychee and soy served with lychee and green olives. Or Pig Goes on a Holiday

Dessert

Steph: a trio of beetroot - Chocolate & beetroot macaron, beetroot chocolate brownie with beetroot ice cream and a beetroot lollipop with fizzy sherbert powder

Karen: tasting plate of rhubarb - rhubarb financier, Rhubarb mousse gateau, lemon shortbread with rhubarb jam and rhubarb crumble.

Suze: Rainbow Vegie Layer Cake- beetroot & chocolate, carrot, spinach with cream cheese frosting

Shez: Fennel flan with fennel cream with beetroot sorbet and fennel and fennel brandy snap

Billy: eggplant chocolate tart with candied carrot, purple carrot ice cream with citrus peels and roasted almond

Linda: Caramalised onion panacotta w/ burnt butter ice cream & olive macaron

Unfortunately, by the time we got to taking some of the photos, the ice cream accompanying the desserts had melted. Apologies is advance, as these photos did not do all the dishes justice. As you can see, we went a little overboard with dessert, as per usual. However, true to our food bloggers form, you’d think after the onslaught of 6 desserts, we’d be caught in a food coma, but no, we marched back to eating a final serving of chicken curry and rice which Ellie kindly pre-prepared.

I guess you’d be intrigued to find out who won what for the night.

Best Savoury: Ellie

Best Dessert: Steph

Most outrageous: Linda

Congratulations to everyone for making it such a wonderful night and allowing us the opportunity to sample your creative dishes. Thank you for making the first Cook Off such a success, hopefully this will be the beginning of many more to come.

A massive thank you to Ellie, her husband J and daughter C for inviting us into their home, and being so hospitable. Also thank you to both Billy and Ellie for donating gifts for the winners of the Cook Off.

Singapore – East Coast Lagoon, Siang Hee & Haji Lane

Howard — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:06:27 +0000

This will be my last post on Singapore street/hawker food during our Nuffnang Awards trip. Next post, will be my fantastic meal at Jaan Par Andre.

East Coast Lagoon Food Village

I touched down in Singapore a day before everyone else, so I had a bit of time to explore. The first thing I did was go to Orchard Rd so I could find a shirt for the awards night. I somehow forgot to pack a shirt, so I was left with a suit and about 5 t-shirts, what a disaster.

Luckily my dinner was a bit more organised as Teresa and I had planned to meet Leslie from ieatishootipost for what he would call late night supper. We met up at 10pm on a Thursday night for this feast, something which would be unheard of in Sydney. Also making an appearance was Nuffnang co-founder Ming, who loves his food as much as any one else. He is very passionate about his food, especially on what is Singaporean or Malaysian as often some dishes can be claimed by either country. We agreed to let that debate run another day, and just enjoy the food because we were all starving.

This is apparently one of the best satay bee hoon you can find in Singapore. It doesn’t look too appealing, but it’s something which needs to be eaten to be admired. Beneath the sea of nutty satay sauce is rice vermicelli noodles and slices of pork. This to me is comfort food and believe me, it doesn’t need to look good to taste good!

: Chicken satay

The chicken satay wasn’t any different to what you can find in Sydney. What you won’t find in Sydney is perhaps the good price of $3.

: Oyster omelette

I made an effort to try as much oyster omelette’s as I could in Singapore. It’s the type of dish you can get sick of easily (like pancakes), but it’s interesting to see the different ways the dish is prepared by different stalls. The key is fresh oysters, a hot chili sauce and a balanced use of potato starch. This store had it all.

: Laksa

Rojak

Rojak is a type of salad which is often made from fruit and vegetables. This one is made up of fried dough fritters, bean curds, boiled potatoes, prawn fritters, and cucumber mixed with a sweet thick, spicy peanut sauce. To my surprise, it also has pickled ginger and a preserved egg called century egg. The ginger and egg is new to me, but it is a great substitute for the usual hard-boiled egg.

: Char siu wonton mee

: Mixed fruits

I tend to neglect fruit and vegetables when I go overseas, so a fruit platter was something needed to keep me in check. You’ll find fresh pineapple, mango, pawpaw, water melon, pear and kiwi fruit.

Siang Hee

After eating at East Coast Lagoon with Leslie, it seems that he has the insider knowledge on what is good to eat in Singapore. I made a note to eat with him again before going back to Sydney, but this time bringing along the rest of the es&t crew and also Suze and Helen.

We ate at Siang Hee, which is a cze shar restaurant. What the hell does cze zhar mean ? Well, it is usually a Chinese outlet which serves a variety of ala carte style dishes. These are usually served with rice and soup. For the Sydney siders, if you go into the Eating World foodcourt where Gumshara Ramen is you will see a few of these stores. It is usually a casual style eatery, Cabramatta has a few of these as well-run by predominately teo chew people.

Anyway what makes this store so special is the unique dishes created by the Chef. She is constantly trying to be unique and creative with her dishes, and thanks to the exposure Leslie has given on his blog her sales in her Restaurant has increased dramatically. As a result, she’s coming up with new types of dishes all the time and we were luckily enough to try a few.

Most people who come from a Chinese family would know about a soup or herbal tea made from Luo Han Guo . It is actually a fruit, but a lot sweeter. The Chef here reduced the fruit into a thick sauce along with a few other mystery ingredients. The end product was a taste like sweet and sour pork, but with the added kick of luo han guo sweetness. It’s hard to describe the taste.

Deep fried pork knuckle with copious amounts of crackle. This wouldn’t look out-of-place at a German Restaurant such as Lowenbrau. This wasn’t just normal fried pork, the meat was still tender and you could taste some of the collagen still hanging on it’s dear life on each piece of pork.

This was probably our only proper intake of vegetables throughout the trip.

This oyster omelette was a bit different to others. It does not contain any potato starch in it, resulting in a more natural taste. The fried garlic pieces on top really top off the dish.

This is Leslie’s “spin doctor” and right hand man, the man who helps him out on his forum. It’s tough life blogging in Singapore, I’m not sure how they do it in the heat!

Our vegetable intake returns to its normal daily requirements. This stir fry dish of house tofu with one side coated with spinach, mushrooms and vegetables is a simple dish and looks like something which you can find in most Chinese restaurants.

Deshelled prawns coated with a light batter, deep-fried and served with a creamy pumpkin sauce.

Steamed groper, served the classic Chinese way with soy sauce, fried garlic pieces and shallots.

This is called har cheong gai and seems to be an original recipe from the Chef. The secret (or not so secret) ingredient is shrimp paste. Leslie sums up the dish well on his blog :

For her new Har Cheong Gai recipe, she changed her Prawn Paste to a brand from Hong Kong. She also tells me that in order to get the flavour deep into the bit between the two bones, she marinades the wings over two days. Lastly, she uses seven different flours to make the batter so that it comes out thin yet super crispy.

Food Republic Food Court

This food court is located in the Wisma Atrium shopping centre.

: Oyster omelette … again

: Stir fried prawn noodles

Shopping in Singapore

To break things up a little because of all this food talk, I’ll provide a few tips I picked up while shopping in Singapore.

For a Shopping Centre experience with designer brands such as Marc Jacobs, Miu Miu, Prada, LV and smaller stores such as Top Shop and Zara, I recommend the newly opened Ion Orchard Plaza. If you catch a cab, they even have someone open the door for you. You won’t find that in Paramatta Westfields that’s for sure. There is also a massive food court at the bottom level.

For the Paddington and boutique/vintage store experience you must visit Haji Lane. It’s got the Surry Hill’s, laneway, indie vibe to it and has cool cafe’s and graffitied laneway to match. Along with name brands, you will also find alot of Independent designers there. I managed to pick up Van’s shoes for only $45 AUD and also some very cool A.P.C and Band of Outsiders style shirts for about half the price of what it would probably cost at Incu. For the girls, check out Lady Melbournes wrap up of what she bought there.

Haji Lane is also good for Hookah, if you are into that type of stuff. It’s good relaxing fun without the tobacco.

Photo taken by grabyourfork

East Coast Lagoon Food Village
1220 East Coast Parkway

Siang Hee
89 Zion Road
#01-137

Food Republic Food Court
Wisma Atrium Shopping Centre Level 4

Haji Lane
Just take a cab and ask for Arab St or Haji Lane

Singapore – Tiong Bahru, Maxwell Food Centre, Sin Hoi Fai

Howard — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:59:10 +0000

Even though we were primarily in Singapore for the Nuffnang Awards, we braved the heat and humidity and ate our way throughout Singapore as if we hadn’t eaten in two weeks. It’s a tough life, I know. We spent most our time at hawker centres, some of the best food can be found there. The food is very cheap at the current exchange rate, with most single serve bowls/dishes ranging from $2 to $5 Singapore dollars (xrate at the time was $1 aud = $1.25 sng).

Tiong Bahru Market

I was told by a friend that the Tiong Bahru Market has some of the best hawker food in Singapore. Luckily, our hotel was just across the road and as a result, this was the hawker centre which we visited the most. Out of the three which we visited, this would probably be my pick due to the extra variety of food available. Not only did it have the usual Singapore hawker fare, there was a lot of teo chew food as well.

Queue for soy bean milk

The line for this store was huge, every day people would line up. We figured you can’t go wrong with a crowd so we also lined up. It cost us a measly 70cents a cup the size of a medium Macca’s coke. Served ice-cold, it’s the perfect wash down in the humidity of Singapore.On a side note, a local told me not to judge a store by its queues. Often people just line up because it is cheap.

Store next door, could use a few more customers

Check out that pork belly, so bad but so good.

Steamed rice flour cakes topped with preserved radish, $1 for 8 if my memory serves me correctly. It’s a little hard to describe, but the texture is a bit like sauerkraut but without the sourness.

Pork rib and prawn mee

The queue for this store was also huge, so I hopped in. The pork ribs are very tender, fall off the bone material. I think the strength of this dish is the sweet soy sauce it is mixed with, as the dish is served dry and not with a soup. The other little condiments such as crunchy fried onions and garlic make this $3 bowl unbelievably good.

Nasi lemak

Everything in this store was baked on the premises, these egg tarts were freshly baked and I picked one up for a cool 30 cents.

Fried chive dumplings and rice flour cake stuffed with sticky rice

Breakfast somewhere …

Sadly, I didn’t take note of the name of this restaurant. We went for a quick breakfast during our Mint Museum of Toys tour. The food options were interesting to say the least.

Kaya toast

This was very average, despite the butter it was very dry. They were quite tight with the kaya but for $1 for 2 slices, what more can you ask for.

The name of this dish escapes me, but the idea of soft-boiled eggs is something that I couldn’t knock back. The idea is to crack open the eggs, pour the yolk and whites into the bowl and top with sweet soy sauce and salt and pepper.

This was new to me, but a bloody great dish. It would have been great with some toasted white bread as well.

Maxwell Food Centre

If you look on google, Maxwell is sure to pop up if you’re searching for hawker food in Singapore. It’s in Chinatown and is quite easy to find. While the food there is good, it’s probably ranked third out of the three I visited.

Hungry after our tour

Black carrot/radish cake

Fish ball soup

Popiah , a type of spring roll

Rojak

Fried noodles with beef

Oyster omelette

This is different to the normal version as it is not crunchy because it does not contain any potato starch.

Wonton and roast pork mee

Fresh wonton and crunchy fatty roast pork, this cost a measly $2.40 AUD and despite its simplicity was one of my favourite dishes.

I’ve no idea what is in all these desserts, but they are live saver in the Singapre heat. Most consist of shaved ice, coconut cream and syrup.

Sin Hoi Sai Eating House

It was nearing 10pm and we were getting hungry. The thing with Singapore is that the heat spoils my appetite, and I tend to eat later in the evening. Luckily, Sin Hoi Fai was just across the road from our hotel and is open until 5am every day. We actually got a tip-off from Leslie , he suggested we go there for the salted egg crab. None of the food blew me away, but the flavours were good. At nearly $40 SNG/KG, it was a bit expensive but on par with Sydney mud crab market prices. All the seafood is kept in tanks and you get to choose what you want.

Oat meal deep fried prawns

Salted egg Sri Lankan crab

Black Pepper Sri Lankan crab

Stayed tuned for Part 2 of our Singapore street eats, there are way too many photos to go through!

Singapore, Nuffnang Blog Awards

Howard — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:00:17 +0000

We’ve been away for a few days, hence the lack of posts. Now that we are back from Singapore, we’ll spend the next week and a bit with a few posts about our eating adventures. Minh then returns from New Zealand so hopefully she has a bit to show as well.

Nuffnang Asia-Pacific Blog Awards 2009

Some of you might have been aware that we were recently nominated in the Best Food Blog category for the Nuffnang Asia Pacific blog awards for 2009. It came as a massive shock, considering how many good food blogs there are who are apart of Nuffnang, not only in Australia, but also in Asia. We still consider ourselves quite below the pecking order as a food blog, but who could knock back a trip to Singapore to represent Australian bloggers ?

Last week, we were flown up to Singapore for a few days as part of the Awards night. It was a massive night and we got to rub shoulders with some of Asia’s finest bloggers from all types of blogs from fashion to food. Overall, us Aussies did pretty well with every Aussie who was nominated in a category taking away an award except for us. Way to go Team es&t!

Congrats to the following Aussie for taking away an award as the best Blog in their respective category : Mr Gadget, Lady Melbourne and Childhood 101. Complete list of winners below :

Best Blogshop: bonitochico.livejournal.com
Best Fashion Blog: ladymelbourne.blogspot.com
Best Parenting Blog: childhood101.blogspot.com
Best Travel Blog: ironwulf.net
Best Celebrity Blog: joannepeh.com
Best Entertainment Blog: kennysia.com
Best Geek Blog: mrgadget.com.au
Best Hidden Gem: dedoodleblog.blogspot.com
Best Original Blog Design: xiaxue.blogspot.com
Most Influential Blog: xiaxue.blogspot.com
Region’s Best Blog: xiaxue.blogspot.com

One thing we did come away with was how massive blogging is in Asia-Pacific. If you check on Twitter for the hash tag #nnawards, there was a lot of activity and interest going around before and after the awards night. It was the talk of the town, with everyone wanting a ticket to the awards night. If the same event was to be held here, it wouldn’t of generated the same hype due to the relative infancy of blogging in Australia. Blogging is still regarded as a niche activity, some would even say a nerdy past time. But hey, someone has to do it right ?

This is Xia Xue. Unknown to me before the awards night, she has a massive following in Asia and can be considered an Internet celebrity of some sort. It resulted in her taking away 3 awards, the most of any blogger. One thing to note is that she is a full-time blogger, even though her blog doesn’t focus on any topic in particular. It’s a fascinating career for her, apparently she makes a fair bit of coin too.

Food for the night wasn’t too bad, but the food wasn’t what everyone came for.

One thing I noticed about Singapore was, everyone pretty much has an SLR.

Lunch with ieatishootipost

Meet Leslie Tay, the winner of the Best Food Blog award. I’ve been a long time follower of his blog even though he lives in Singapore, it’s a great resource for finding places to eat if your in Singapore. I’ve spoken to him via email for the past couple of months ever since he asked es&t to give a list of places to eat in Sydney. His blog is amazing, considering the amount of places he has covered in a food crazy country such as Singapore.

One thing to note is that he is a Doctor (GP) by trade and still has the time to consistently blog. The feat itself is a testament to how dedicated and passionate he is with his blog, definitely someone for us at es&t to look up to. He also knows a thing or two about Sydney, having studied here for a few years whilst becoming a Doctor.

While we were in Singapore we were lucky to meet up with him twice over some good Singaporean food. One of the best meals we had was at Siang Hee Restaurant run by the woman in that photo up there. Don’t be fooled by the hawker style kitchen, she whipped up a few innovative dishes which you wouldn’t expect from a road side eatery. It was great having the opportunity to sit and chat with him, he is one of the most down to earth blokes I’ve ever met. Stayed tuned for my full post on Siang Hee Restaurant and lunching with Leslie.

Shopping

I’m not one who shops that often, but I picked up a few things while I was in Singapore. I went nuts in Zara, TopShop and G2000. Zara has everything, their suits are awesome as they are the only brand which I don’t need anything tapered. My entire work wardrobe is also from G2000, it’s so bloody cheap and the quality is up there and sure beats the living daylights out of brands like Industrie which are three times the price but half the level of quality.

Haji Lane is also somewhere which I can recommend. If anyone shops at Paddington or somewhere like Incu , you will love Haji Lane. I picked up these sunnies from there, cost me a cool $70.

Singapore street food

Oyster pancake ($1.65 AUD)

One thing you begin to realise is that Singapore live to eat and not eat to live. It is a food mad country, and no matter who you talk to, they will have their take on what is the best and worst of food in Singapore. I must admit though, the heat got to the better of me and my appetite wasn’t as big as it usually is during my trip. But fear not, I still managed to fit in copious amounts of meals and I’ll combine all my hawker style adventures in one post in the next few days.

Pork rib and prawn mee ($2.45 AUD)

The line for this bowl was huge, naturally I had to join the queue. When I got to the end, an old woman saw my camera and she said to me “you bloggers pick the right restaurants ” in Cantonese. I was shocked to hear it initially as I surprised she even knew what a blog was, once again you never judge a person by their age. I look to one of the walls of the hole in the wall store and the owner has stuck up a few blog posts about his bowl of noodles, word must have got out on how awesome his noodles were.

Mint Ice cream w/ wafer (80 cents AUD)

There was no shortage of these ice cream carts selling ice cream sandwiches on Orchard road. For 80 cents, I expected something tasting cheap and watered down. Instead, it would of gave top line supermarket ice cream a run for its money.

Lunch at Jaan par André

I first saw and heard of Andre Chiang at the World Chef Showcase as part of SIFF 2009. He was running a session with Mark Best and I could already tell that he was quite a special chef from his demonstration. We had enough time for one decent lunch and it was a toss-up between Iggy’s and Jaan. After a flick of a coin we chose Jaan par Andre, I think I made the right choice. He’s trained at several 3 Michelin Star restaurants and you can tell by his food where his influences come from. He also made a debut at No. 4 in the Miele Guide 2009/2010 which lists Asia’s top restaurants, a bit like our Good Food Guide.

I won’t reveal too much and leave it for my post which is coming up in a few days. We went for the 3 course set lunch for $58 SGD which I though was pretty good value considering the type of food we had.

Flying on Singapore Air A380

This was my first time on the A380 so I was quite excited. The food was the usual Singapore Air quality which is a cut above other airlines in my books. For dessert, we even got ice cream which is my favourite part of the flight before kicking back and enjoying a movie.

One thing that has improved dramatically is the Entertainment system. Not only is the screen wider and clearer, the user interface has dramatically improved. To top it off, it has a USB port so that you can plug-in your own devices and watch movies off it, view photos and even listen to your own music. Well done Singapore Air.

I managed to fit in a few movies on my trip : The Taking of Pelham 123, Julie and Julia, Up!, The Land of the Lost and Terminator Salvation. My pick of the movies would be Up and Julie and Julia.

Thank you Nuffnang

Finally, thank you to Nuffnang for flying us over to experience the Nuffnang Awards. Awards aside, Nuffnang are doing a great thing for Australian bloggers by being the first company in Australia dedicated to Online advertising for Blogs. While blogging is still at a relatively early stage of its development life cycle in Australia, it’s good to know that they are around at the foundation level. Hopefully this spurs us on to improve the blog and hopefully be there next year again in one capacity or another. Special mention to David Lee and David Krupp who we have been working with over the past ten months.

Over the next few days we will be posting about what we ate in Singapore, stayed tuned!

I-San, Haymarket Sydney

Minh — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:23:27 +0000

Update : I-San is now closed and has been replaced by Thanon Khao San

Where is a group of hungry food bloggers to go on a Monday night at 9pm? While I love Sydney, it frustrates me how the city seems to shut down on weeknights leaving you wandering the streets in search of a feed. This is the situation we found ourselves in on a recent Monday night.

With the cold weather sending us all to chills we decided to go to Chat Thai, a city favourite for Thai. Unfortunately the restaurant was true to form and packed out! I guess we weren't the only ones with the same idea. Our patience and tolerance for cold only runs so far and we soon found ourselves headed for I-San, situated just around the corner.

The decor is oddly charming with its Fuschia walls and and widescreen TV Ton the wall playing Thai karaoke. Unlike Chat Thai we are seated immediately and only spot one other group in the restaurant, undeterred we ponder the menu and in the end leave it up to Billy and Helen to decide on our dishes for the night. Suze has picked up a can of Solo which will prove to be a wise decision considering our immediate future.

Sticky Rice, $3 per serving

I am amused to see that I-San seems to share the same wholesaler as Laos Village, serving up their sticky rice servings in these cute bamboo containers. Is this a Thai or Laos custom that I’ve never seen before? In either case the sticky rice is a hit with the table and seems to hit the spot more satisfying than normal Jasmine rice would. By the time we leave all of these little containers are empty.

Som Tom (Laos), Fresh green papaya salad in LAOS style $8.00

It seems a sad fact of life that while I adore the flavour of Papaya salad, my tolerance for heat remains… pathetic at best. The Papaya is wonderfully crunchy before heat and fire overtake my mouth and I find myself groping wildly for my tea all the while warning the girls around me. Karen decides to try it for herself despite admitting to an equally terrible tolerance to Chilli and moments later is doing the same dance. Suze takes the high road and wisely avoids the salad. In the end we abandon our salad to the other side of the table where it is quickly devoured.

Pad See Eew, Fried noodle with soy sauce with beef $9.50

The Pad See Eew is a hit with our end of the table, with a serving that definitely is not skimping on the meat! The noodles are slipperly and wide and go down a treat, I somehow manage to stop myself from devouring half the plate.

Khao pad pla muek, Thai fried rice with calamari and egg $13.50

The Khao pad pla muek is probably the favourite of the table as by the end of the meal we’ve ordered up 3 servings of it. The calamari is fat and plump, combined with the rich flavour of the the soy flavoured rice & egg means all of the plates are soon scraped clean.

Sai Krog, Lovely sausage "Thai I-San" style $8.00

I can’t quite pick the flavour of the Sai Krog and in the end I think the best description is that it was like the bastard child of a Chorizo and the Vietnamese Nem Nuong. That is to say, totally awesome. I can’t help but wonder why its served up with whole garlic and in the end can’t resist trying the sausage with a chunk of garlic. Surprisingly, it works really well and I’m not overwhelmed with a garlicky taste. Sadly I cannot say the same about my breath afterwards.

Jungle Curry, Spicy beef with vegetables, green peppers country style without coconut milk $11.50

The Jungle Curry was a little different to others I’ve had in the past, while still lovely and fragrant I was a bit surprised at the colour of the soup as I’ve always had Jungle Curry served in an almost clear broth. Perhaps this was because of the beef? The green beans are a welcome munch in the sea of beef.

Sai Uar

With our 3rd helping of Thai Fried Rice this unknown sausage comes out… After my experience with the salad I am wary of the sausage but venture in. My mistake! Despite a relatively deceivingly mild first bite, as the flavour spreads so does the chilli. Billy simply watches us bemused at our pain. He probably grew up eating this stuff as a baby! Edit: Thanks to Ja for naming our mystery dish!

As we leave the other group in the restaurant leaves at the same time, as if to prove that Sydney really is a small town the group turns out to be the group of thai boys who work at Wok Station, my regular lunch haunt just down the street from my Office! In the end I have no reservations recommending I-San. Our final bill is a paltry $15 each and I walk out with my firey garlic breath satisfied that this is one restaurant that hasn’t toned down its flavours to suit the western tounge.

I-San City Thai Restaurant
413 Pitt Street
Sydney, NSW 2000
Ph: (02) 9211 4150

Take it slow wine dinner MuMu Grill, Crows Nest

Howard — Sat, 09 May 2009 19:00:09 +0000

Take it slow

I use to eat anything and everything and didn’t particular care how my food was prepared, nor where it came. If it tasted good, who cares right ? Then I got older, this blog came along and I started paying attention to the food I was eating and appreciating the blood, sweat, tears and passion which goes into some restaurants. My food doesnt have to come from a 3 hat kitchen, it could be the dodgy noodle store run by a granny and her son. No longer would I be happy with KFC for dinner every Friday night as a treat, I want my moneys worth and I’ll stay in the queue even it if means a 1 hour wait.

Now what does this have to do with Mumu’s Grill ? Well, Chef Mumu aka Craig Macindoe is exactly the type of person I am talking about in regards to caring about his food. He not only cooks up a fantastic lamb, but he’s passionate about his food, where it’s come from and how it gets to his restaurant. I feel at ease eating his food, because I know that the meat he uses has been prepared with the best interests of our environment in mind, also know as sustainable food. (...)
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A Taste of Sweden, Ikea Rhodes

Minh — Wed, 06 May 2009 23:35:30 +0000

I went to Ikea and all I got was this…

Awesome piping kit! A swedish education! And dinner with a bunch of really interesting people. An email from Dave from Ikea’s This Is Home project saw A Table for Two, Chocolatesuze, Citrus & Candy, Grabyourfork, Here Comes the Food, I Am Obsessed With Food and The <3 of Food come out west to the Rhodes Ikea base for dinner Swede style and an introduction to the new Ikea kitchen range.

I can’t be the only one obsessed with Ikea can I? It helps that my current unit is approximately 85% furnished with Ikea products and say what you will, but I love my Billy Bookcases! That said, I’d never actually stopped to eat at Ikea preferring to rush home and entertain myself with seemingly simple but ultimately frustrating furniture building instructions (I don’t jest, I really do love it). For those visting the Mothership, the main cafe is located on the first floor just after the escalators and a small deli is conveniently situated on the ground floor, selling all sorts of swedish goods as well as a packaged frozen version of the meatballs I am about to try for the first time.

Lingonberry & Elderflower cordial

The night starts off with non-alcoholic cordials, Ligonberry and Elderflower which are thickly sweet to the tongue. The Elderflower scent is not unlike canned Lychees and goes down nicely. We are informed that usually these drinks are spiked with a kick of vodka but I somehow doubt that Ikea has an alchol license so we have ours straight up.

The Premium Cider Koppaberg comes in a Mother sized can and for once, the advertising doesn’t lie as it is indeed a refreshing taste of sweet pear. The carbonate in the drink spits alarmingly while being poured but is actually rather light on the tongue when drunk (I say this as a non-carbonate drinker).

(...)
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