| By appetite,on November 28th,2011 One of the things I like most about food is the way it brings people together. Food’s ability to be shared and form part of the social fabric of life is central to my ongoing passion for it. Countless occasions and important events are marked and defined by what people eat and drink at them. I am at my happiest when I cook. It’s one of the ways I tell people they mean something to me. Whether it’s a simple omelet for The Beloved on a Sunday morning, a fresh and fast weeknight meal for a few friends or a carefully planned and balanced dinner party, I am in my element in the kitchen; chopping, prepping, cooking, stirring, tasting, plating. Give me a special occasion to cook for and, well, it just doesn’t get any better! Last weekend I went to a birthday soiree for a friend. It was one of those birthdays that end in a zero. Quite the milestone. An accomplished and adventurous cook, she will be spending her actual birthday weekend dining in some rather fabulous restaurants in Sydney. But her clever husband decided a milestone doesn’t really feel like a milestone unless the celebration is shared, so he put the word out to her nearest and dearest and told her she was having a little party! To help her acclimatise to the idea and stop her from doing too much at her own party, I was asked if I would mind doing some finger food. “Mind??!!” I replied, “I would love to”. Here is what I made. Smashed broadbean tartlets with ricotta and chorizoCook young broad beans and baby peas until just tender. Roughly mash with a for, season with lemon juice and pepper and stir through some ricotta. Served in my rather rustic looking shortcrust tart shells and garnished with red garnet amaranth. Doesn’t get much easier. 
Mini papadums with tandoori chicken and mangoThese use potato papad. Still crispy and crunchy and wafer thin like pappadums made from rice or lentils or chickpeas, but made from potato. No messy deep frying, the microwave works a treat to cook them and is obviously more health conscious. Topped with some grilled chicken that I marinaded in tandoori paste and yoghurt and a mango, coriander and chilli salsa and you have a mouthful of yum. 
Goat’s cheese crostini with beetroot and blood orange marmaladeLightly toasted sourdough, a brush of extra virgin olive oil, a smear of ashed goat’s chevre and a spoonful of beetroot marmalade. It tasted surprisingly good for my maiden effort. In a saucepan mix two medium beetroot finely diced, one pink lady apple finely also finely diced, a cup of fresh blood orange juice, a generous tablespoon of honey, about half a teaspoon of cinnamon, some grated ginger and a few cloves. Bring to a gentle boil then turn back down to a simmer and forget about it for an hour. The liquid should almost be gone and the beetroot getting a slightly sticky consistency. Not at all a fan of the tinned beets of my childhood, when beetroot can taste as good as this, I am an easy convert. 
Red curry fish cakes with pineapple relishI love these fish cakes. A bung it all in the food processor recipe that is yet to fail me. You can check it out here. It evolves every so often, this time with the accompaniment of a simple pineapple relish. Quarter of a pineapple, cored and chopped, two red chillies, 1/4 cup each of rice wine vinegar, water and white sugar. Fifteen minutes on medium heat, let cool,then pulse in the food processor until its chunky. I served them with thick slices of cucumber. 
Asparagus “cigars”with white anchovy cream and jamonFold a sheet of filo in half and brush one end with anchovy cream (made by combining 4 good quality anchovies, 1/4 cup cream,pepper and a good squeeze of lemon juice in a mortar and pestle), layer a piece of jamon or prosciutto –I halved my slices lengthwise, place a blanched spear of asparagus on and wrap up. I got two “cigars”from each sheet of filo and sealed the ends with a little brush of olive oil. In a 200 degree oven for 8-10 minutes and you are done. 
All in all, not a bad offering. The birthday girl followed my little starters up with a mouth watering pork curry. The meat melted in your mouth, there was just the right amount of heat and spice and the addition of Vietnamese and pea eggplants gave an extra burst of flavour. I’m going to want to eat that one again. To finish, she recreated the mango meringue birthday cake from the cover of the 10th Birthday edition of Delicious Magazine. She more than did it justice –it was delicious. Happy Birthday Lan! 
NN By appetite,on November 20th,2011 Six months ago, there wasn’t a lot of reason to venture to Kew for any sort of culinary experience. Now,you can go to Ora for breakfast and get a thoughtful offering of sustainable and seasonal options accompanied by well made, great coffee, head to Mister Bianco for Southern Italian inspired cuisine in a comfortable but stylish setting, or go to St Kat’s. Situated right in the heart of Kew junction it seems to have captured not just the local market, but lured those prepared to travel to suburbia for the cachet of chefs, Shane Delia and George Calombaris. St Katherine’s delivers a mix of modern Mediterranean interpretations, from Modern Greek to Middle Eastern and Turkish. Most of the menu is built around the semi-open kitchen with an enormous wood-fired oven, 14-spike rotisserie and a custom made Turkish grill that’s almost the length of the kitchen pass. The remainder is “Stuff”–appetisers, “Side Stuff”and “Sweet Stuff”. I have dined twice at St Katherine’s; once as a party of two and later in a group of nine. On both occasions,the balanced attentive service from the staff on the floor stopped the large space (it seats 140) from feeling more like a cafeteria than a restaurant. Full of blonde wood furniture, brightly coloured ceramic plates and cutlery presented in old tomato tins it is the latest and largest venture in the Made Establishment’s (formerly called The Press Club Group) stable of six. On both occasions I embraced the plates in the middle of the table culture and had the 6 course shared menu. It is a good way to eat your way across the breadth of the menu, is not too damaging to the wallet and you will certainly not leave hungry. The menu changes regularly showing some consideration to seasonality and availability of produce, with a few anchor dishes for which St Kat’s has become well known. Expect the shared menu to start with some dips, a vegetable dish and a couple of items from “Stuff”. On my most recent visit we had red lentil kofte. Great flavour,but I actually prefer the crunchier texture of the ones I make at home based on the recipe in Greg Malouf’s Turquoise. 
On each visit there has a been a vegetable dish amongst the starters. The below dish of slightly pickled carrot with plump beans was lifted by the addition of dried mint and hint of cumin. Not the prettiest to look out, the simplicity and honesty of it’s flavours made it stand out. 
One of the aforementioned anchor dishes, is indubitably the Turkish lamb dumplings. Tender spicy lamb parcels with the tangy lemony hit of sumac and creamy garlicky yoghurt. Not taken by these on my first visit, I almost left these to the others at the table. I am glad I didn’t because second time around they definitely hit the mark. 
The wood fired oven gets a work out with the savoury pides. Peppered figs ricotta mint and haloumi was one of the star combinations. Other welcome tastes were sujuk and bastirma. 
This beautifully cooked piece of fish presented me with a dilemma. It tasted magnificent and the slight charring of the meaty flesh was balanced by the zing of fresh lemon and good olive oil. So where is the problem? It is swordfish. A fish on Greenpeace’s redlist, and most sustainability experts’Asia Pacific “Say No”list. In checking the St Katherine’s website today whilst writing this, I noted that it has been replaced with “Grilled Market Fish”–and a choice between John Dory, Flathead, Black Bream and Baby Snapper. Bream is your best option here, I would think twice about the others. If you want to know more, check out Good Fish Bad Fish. 
Surely this is what rotisseries were made for? If you eat meat (and clearly I do) it can be hard to go past the mouth watering tenderness of slow roasted succulent meat. If you embark upon a shared menu at St Kat’s, leave room for this. It will probably never win any accolades for creativity or ingenuity, but damn it tastes good. It was served with a simple salad that I couldn’t get enough of and a wonderfully nutty and fluffy pilaf. 
  Desserts are rarely my thing, but the watermelon “salad” doused in arak syrup,with mint jelly cubes and cinnamon accented labne was one I would go back for. Sadly, it’s no longer on the menu, but hopefully it will make a return. 
Hot cherry jam filled doughnuts on chocolate “gravel”atop a chocolate mousse that sits happily above a whiskey jelly. If you have a sweet tooth, this is for you. It was too much for me to devour after the feast that had gone before, but there were plenty of takers at our table to help me finish. 
Go to St Katherine’s with a group, it’s more fun and you won’t feel as lost in the large space. You will also get to taste more of the family friendly, designed to be shared menu. I’m not wowed by St Kat’s, some elements of the menu are a little too gimmicky and fast food oriented (the KFC and Mr Whippy –both of which I have tried), but I do love the flavours and the modern take in many of the middle eastern dishes on the menu. St Katherine’s 26 Cotham Rd. Kew VIC 3101
T:+61 (3) 9207 7477 E:admin@stkatherines.com.au Mon –Fri:12pm –4pm,5.30pm –11pm, Weekends 11.30am till late
By appetite,on July 23rd,2011 Hobba Coffee and Kitchen has just opened in what was an old tyre store on Commercial Road in Prahran. It is the newest venture from the team behind Willim –a very nice little espresso bar hidden just off Glenferrie Rd in Malvern. Hobba is far more spacious and has clearly had a lot of thought go in to the design. It all but screams cafe cool. The wide glass concertina door opens into a vast semi-industrial looking space –brick walls,concrete floors,pale wooden benches and (replica?) Xavier Pouchard Tolix chairs and stools. Whilst I could appreciate the look,the imbalanced heating and metal under the derriere meant it was not a comfortable place to be on a 7 degree Melbourne morning. 
Hobba pitches itself as having a notable focus on coffee,understandable if you know anything about Gerrick Numan,but what lets them down is the delivery and knowledge of the floor staff. They may need to address this before starting to roast in house (they currently use Five Senses). On the morning we went there was an espresso blend and a single origin to choose from for extraction from the Synesso,or three single origins if you wanted filter. We started with a long black and a cafe latte. The long black came out with a nice crema and balanced flavour,but it came out alone. It is not that hard to serve a table of two their coffees at the same time. Really it isn’t. Even when you are busy. The flavours that were well rounded in the long black unfortunately didn’t carry through the milk of the latte. 
On the food front we ordered the Baked Eggs and scrambled eggs with sides of spinach,bacon and mushroom. Both dishes were okay but disappointing. The Baked Eggs (cooked with black beans,chopped tomato,red onion,bacon and Persian feta) came with one egg really runny,whilst the other had its yolk cooked all the way through. It sounded promising on the menu,but lacked seasoning and was barely tepid. Maybe that’s why it came with hot sauce. 
Crusty Dench toast,well cooked spinach and nicely smoked bacon would have you think this simple dish was going to be a winner. A lonely half a mushroom made for an expensive side,and scrambled eggs that you would be forgiven for thinking came from a hotel bain marie brought the dish back down. More coffee was in order to pick things up a bit. I was keen to try one of the suggested filter coffees but wanted to hear what the staff had to say about the various flavour profiles before making my choice. Our original coffees had been finished and cleared long ago,but no-one thought to ask if we wanted another round. The floor staff were friendly but did not seem to be coping with the pace of the morning,which was busy but not frantic. When I finally caught someone’s attention and asked about the filter coffees,I got lots of “ums”and “ahs”and “that’s difficult to describe”and was eventually told to go and ask the barista. Armed with the information I wanted I had to head back to the table to order and again struggled to get someone’s attention. I finally did and ordered a strong latte and an Ethiopian Nekisse as a filter. The obliging waitress,who had cleared our breakfast plates a little earlier,then asked us if we would like to see the breakfast menu. 
The coffees came out individually again –at least five minutes apart. They were good though. The “strong”latte managed to cut through the milk and the Ethiopian Nekisse was lovely –blueberry notes dominate and there was a fresh citrus acidity to balance the well rounded sweetness. I wanted to like Hobba. I really did. But I left feeling let down. It will no doubt do well –the location and style of the cafe will see to that,but it is somewhere that could be great –if it able to lift its game in a few areas. Newly opened places always deserve time to settle in,so I won’t give up. After some time has passed and they have had the opportunity to find their feet,I will venture back and see what they have become. Hobba
428 Malvern Road,Prahran
(03) 9510 8336 Hours
Mon-Sun 7am–5pm . | |
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