Easter in the ‘nongs

The Dandenongs are always about 4 or 5 degrees colder than Melbourne, which means about 15 degrees colder than Brisbane over Easter. It was great. Scarves and boots worn with long neglected coats pulled out of the back of the wardrobe. My friends David and Janet have a couple of acres near the toy town of Olinda, which, like other towns in the area, is large on twee Tudor style tea shops and lolly stores.

Autumn flowers
Autumn flowers

Winter hasn’t a grip on the Dandenongs yet. At Brambledene, the gardens are still green with many flowers having survived the onset of the cold. The big winds up there have blown the chestnuts onto the ground, but as yet, there is only a scattering of autumn colours on the trees.

Chestnuts
Chestnuts

On Easter Monday, we left the hills for a day trip to the Mornington Peninsula. The Peninsula is about 80 km south of Melbourne, As well as bay and ocean beaches, the Peninsula is a well known wine district, specialising in cold climate styles. At Paringa Estate we tasted the pinot noir and shiraz. The pinots were a bit thin, suffering from a couple of dry summers, so we bought a bottle of the shiraz for dinner.
Entrance to Port Phillip Estate
Entrance to Port Phillip Estate

Port Philip Estate at Red Hill is spectacular. The cellar door and dining room sit within a curved building, designed by Wood/Marsh Architecture, with views to the coast. Again the recent pinots were a bit thin, but described as ‘elegant’ by the woman doing the pouring. She didn’t convince the visiting French man next to us who much preferred the softer wines from home.

View from Port Philip Estate
View from Port Philip Estate

Back in the Dandenongs, the wind had come up and it was getting cold. For dinner, David cooked a pea, pumpkin and shitake mushroom risotto, with a side of sugar peas and lightly dressed avocado.
Cold weather risotto
Cold weather risotto

We finished with a plum tart recipe from last Saturday’s Weekend Australian and the shiraz from Paringa Estate. The next day, it was back to Brisbane to put the scarf and boots away until that one day in August when it might drop below 20 degrees.

Plum and almond tart
Plum and almond tart
Good morning from Lotte the Labrador
Good morning from Lotte the Labrador

What to eat?

Like many people, I don’t know what to eat anymore. Having decided to renovate my diet at the start of the new year, I now go around in circles before every meal. Do I eat too many carbs? Should I give up sugar? More protein? Less protein? Gluten Free? Are oats gluten? Is quinoa a carb? Should I go paleo? At least I had the good sense to not even consider intermittent fasting. There is no way I can go on short rations two days a week.

To consolidate the change I went to the Gwinganna Lifestyle Retreat in the Tallebudgera Valley for four days. Their food ethos is based around fresh, organic produce with low levels of human intervention. The eggs and most of the vegetables are grown on the site and the chef produced food was the highlight of the stay. Breakfast started with two big bowls on the table, one with porridge and one with stewed fruits. The porridge was different every morning with versions with millet, polenta and quinoa. Then some protein appeared. Usually poached eggs, frittata or baked beans.

Fish curry Gwinganna style
Fish curry Gwinganna style

Lunch was the main meal of the day with choices such as a chicken or fish Thai style curry, with a big bowl of salad and one of vegetables to share. Dinner was smaller with a tasting plate for entree, soup and vegetables. The idea was to have your main meal in the middle of the day and a smaller meal at night when you needed the energy less.

This is a great way to eat if you have a team of chefs in your kitchen to start the prep work for lunch right after breakfast service. I did buy the cookbook and have expanded my repertoire to include some of their dishes, accompanied beforehand to a visit to the health food shop for organic vegetables.

Old food wisdom
Old food wisdom

For further research, I headed down to Primal Pantry, a paleo cafe in Florence Street, Newstead, for some breakfast. The breakfast menu seemed familiar but filled with dishes which were artfully contrived to remove all grains, sugar, dairy and legumes. So the pancakes were made from cauliflower and the paleo toast I ordered tasted of coconut and hazelnut meal. There are more exotic choices like Nasi Goreng Style Sweet Sticky Pork ($21.50) but I had the more traditional poached eggs with avocado ($16.50). Paleo eating seems to involve a lot of work to recreate dishes that are recognisable to all of us carb lovers, but this becomes an expensive way to eat. $20 for some poached eggs and coffee seems a tad excessive, and really, it is hard to believe lentils aren’t good for you.

Primal Pantry poached eggs
Primal Pantry poached eggs

So back home in my kitchen, what have I learned? From Gwinganna, I have kept up the warm breakfasts, such as the poached fruit and porridge and moved away from muesli and yoghurt. I have put more attention into lunch and try and make sure I have some protein in the middle of the day and pretty much cut out pasta and other carbfests for dinner. The ritual I particularly liked at Gwinganna was after dinner when pots of digestive tea were put on the table. These simple teas are made from fresh herbs and fruit. For instance a slice of lime with some lemon myrtle, or ginger and mint. Very soothing after dinner.

I still don’t know what to eat but at least I now have a long hard think about it before I put it in my mouth. What are you eating?

Home-made pumpkin and buckwheat muffins
Home-made pumpkin and buckwheat muffins

Gwinganna Lifestyle Retreat
192 Syndicate Road
Tallebudgera Valley
Ph: 07 5589 5000
http://www.gwinganna.com

Primal Pantry
Cnr Florence and Macquarie Sts
Teneriffe
Ph: 07 3252 5960
Open Monday to Sunday 7am – 3pm

Hot Times at the Tinderbox

OK, I’ve been holding out. I was through the door at the Tinderbox pretty much when they opened in November last year and have been a regular ever since. Tinderbox is the noisy baby brother of PJ McMillan’s Harveys and sits just behind it off James Street.

Sitting outside
Sitting outside

Tinderbox doesn’t take bookings, except for large groups, which means it can be hard to squeeze a table out of them on the weekend, giving me an incentive to reduce traffic. On a recent Friday, however, the swarms have moved on. So I invite you all to enjoy the delights of Tinderbox.

The restaurant is bright and breezy with seating outside and in and is set up for casual dining. Close to the Palace Centro, the restaurant is a good place to meet up on the weekend for a glass of wine and dinner. The centrepiece of the inside space is the wood-fired oven, around which the menu is based.

A lot comes out of that oven with roasted meats, creative vegetables and pizzas as the basis of the menu. You can go a couple of ways. Order the roast or one of the Italian inspired pasta dishes with some sides from the Market Garden part of the menu or head for the pizzas. The last couple of visits I have not been ale to go past the pizza with Mooloolaba prawns, chili, zucchini, fior de latte and cherry tomatoes ($23). This pizza is guaranteed a crisp base from the woodfired oven, though on the right side of chewy, with fresh and flavoursome toppings. For the gluten adverse, gluten free bases are available.

Mooloolaba prawn pizza
Mooloolaba prawn pizza

The stars of the menu are the vegetable dishes. The wood-roasted leeks are soft and silky and at the moment they come with capers and goat’s cheese ($12). There is also a William pear salad with rocket and parmesan ($12) and fire-roasted mushroom with balsamic onions and blue cheese ($12).The menu is seasonal means recent favourites can suddenly disappear.

Leeks with goat's cheese
Leeks with goat’s cheese

The same happens with the small, though carefully chosen wine list. The staff sold me on a marsanne roussanne, a style I had never tried before, and after enjoying it a couple of times, it went the same way as some vegetable favourites. None of this I think is bad. The philosophy is to deliver produce driven and seasonal food which means sacrificing some preferred choices as the seasons turn.

The one source of anxiety at the Tinderbox is occasional difficulty in flagging down the wait staff. The staff are under pressure on busy nights and can sail right past. It is not the sort of place to dither about ordering. Yet despite, the pressure, everyone who turns up seems to get settled, receive a drink and a feed.

The Tinderbox serves fresh food, particularly great vegetables, and has a creative and evolving menu. Just don’t get too attached to your favourites.

Tinderbox Kitchen
7/31 James Street, Fortitude Valley
Open: Tuesday to Saturday for lunch and dinner
Phone: (07) 3852 3744 (for bookings over 8)
http://www.thetinderbox.com.au

Turkish Delight at Beachwood Cafe

Beachwood Cafe’s ten tables are scattered across the footpath just off the main street in Yamba, and could be called a hidden gem, except the cafe is well marked on the gourmet traveller’s map. Owner Sevtap Yuce worked for Bill Granger before opening her first Beachwood in Angourie in 1994. Now the author of two cookbooks on Turkish cooking, she opens the cafe for breakfast and lunch, writing up the day’s menu on a blackboard at the front. Sevtap’s focus is on using local and seasonal produce resulting in robust dishes bursting with vegetables and bright flavours.

Beachwood cafe
Beachwood cafe

Turkish food is perfect for casual dining and sharing. For lunch we shared the roast duck salad with pumpkin, beetroot and burghal; some dolmades with a surprising chilli kick and leek and potato fritters. By then we had started on an eating frenzy and ordered large from the freshly made cakes and desserts. A rhubarb and rosewater cake, a raspberry tart with fresh cream and a prune and almond cake plus a couple of flat whites later, we were done.
Scrambled eggs with feta for breakfast
Scrambled eggs with feta for breakfast

After such delicious food, I, of course, bought the book and have been cooking from it ever since. You need to stock up on pomegranate molasses and dukkah, but otherwise the ingredients are accessible. First up was the warm lentil salad with chunks of beetroot and pumpkin. Easily put together and lifted with the pomegranate molasses and dukkah. I then tried the roast duck salad, but cheated by cooking a duck breast rather than roasting a whole duck. The salad is bulked out by burghul, beetroot and pumpkin and tossed with chilli, mint and coriander (as well as some of the ubiquitous pomegranate molasses).
Warm lentil salad
Warm lentil salad

I am on such a roll, I already have lamb chops marinating in oregano and olive oil in the fridge for dinner. So for my long suffering friends, prepare for a summer of Turkish meze.

Turkish Meze by Sevtap Yuce
Turkish Meze by Sevtap Yuce

Beachwood Cafe
22 High Street, Yamba
Open Tues to Sunday for breakfast and lunch
http://www.beachwoodcafe.com.au

What’s on at Wato’s?

Without local knowledge, you would probably head down to Wato’s Fish and Burger Bar in Yamba for fish and chips. But with local knowledge , between Tuesday and Saturday night, you can walk into Wato’s and say the magic words ‘the chef’s special, please’ and a whole different world opens up for you.

Chef Tony Young offers three courses for $35 and what is on offer remains a deep mystery until the courses come out. He does check for food allergies and beyond that you are in his hands. The food is based around locally caught fish, cleanly prepared with French techniques. So what was on offer on a quiet Tuesday night?

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The first dish was a big pan of prawns cooked in a burnt butter sauce to be shared with the table. The sauce was bread dippingly good with subtle garlic and lemon flavours. While these delicacies are being brought to our table, the fish and chippery is firing away. Somehow the chef fills the takeaway orders while keeping an eye on the bistro diners.

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The main course is Luderick, local black bream caught in the Clarence River. The fish is served on homemade pasta with a cream caper sauce. The Luderick fillets were quickly fried and moist and the sauce, though cream based, was light.

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Lastly, dessert of fresh berries in a red wine sauce with creme anglaise and vanilla ice cream.

At Wato’s the service is friendly and swift and the staff are enthusiastic about their food and keen for you to enjoy what is on offer. In a way it is the perfect business model with the fish and chips keeping the cash flow going, while being able to make the most of the local seafood with the chef’s special bistro meals. The bottle shop is across the road and they don’t charge corkage. So next time you are in Yamba stop by to see what’s on at Wato’s
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Wato's Fish and Burger Bar
Cnr Yamba and Coldstream Sts, Yamba
Open seven days, Bistro from Weds to Sat nights

The Cheapskate Date goes to…..Swampdog Fish and Chips

The Cheapskate Date has many rules about Friday night dinner. It should be cheap, but value for money, and in the neighbourhood. I knew we were breaking at least one of these rules when we drove across the Story Bridge for dinner at Swampdog Fish and Chips in Vulture Street. The slightly cocked eyebrow said it all as we searched street after street in South Brisbane for a park.

While walking the mile or two from our car park to the restaurant, the Date explained his philosophy. “The idea of a Friday night adventure is an oxymoron. After a big week, what you are looking for is a psychocentric* experience. Culinary allocentrism* is for the weekend.” Yes, he does talk like that.

Swampdog on Vulture Street
Swampdog on Vulture Street

Swampdog Fish and Chips is a revamped corner shop on a little slice of land on Vulture Street. They have a philosophy on sustainability, it is written on the walls, and some gnarly looking blokes working the pans. The set-up is pretty basic. The menu is written up on a wall sized blackboard and you line up to order. You can choose basic basic fish and chips, ranging from $10.90 for the mullet to $15.90 for the barramundi. We went a bit more upmarket. and I ordered the mackerel cutlet with pineapple and coriander salsa and an Asian salad ($16.90), while the CD ordered the special, Cajun grilled cobia ($19.90).
The CD soaks up the ambience
The CD soaks up the ambience

As part of its sustainability philosophy, the accoutrement at Swampdog is pretty basic. There is a long table inside and everyone else sits around outside on some old doors turned into tables in what looks like a car park. They supply disposable knives and forks and if you want anything else, like, say, a wine glass, you bring it yourself. On a busy Friday night, everyone played along and set their own tables with colourful cloths, cutlery and wine glasses. Very urban and festive.
Table setting at Swampdog
Table setting at Swampdog

The food comes pretty quickly, is served in cardboard cartons, and the serves generous. My mackerel was a bit mackerelly but nicely set off by the Asian salad with wombok, carrot, coriander, lettuce and mint. The CD was a bit sceptical about his cobia which really tasted like mackerel as well. He was suspicious the cajun spices were there to cover up rather than to enhance the fish and being served with a Greek salad just added some cross-cultural confusion.
Mackerel and Asian salad
Mackerel and Asian salad

Swampdog is deliberately rough and ready and not an elegant night out, but if you want a bit of casual boho dining with some virtuous sustainability thrown in, it is all good.

And did the Date enjoy the evening? After much deliberation, this is his verdict. “Overall, once the driving and parking were out of the way, this Friday night psychocentric diner had an enjoyable evening. A bit of fish, a bit of fun. Worth crossing the river on a Friday night? It would be a great local, but there is enough ‘OK’ closer to home for an end of the week casual nosh without having to venture too far from the village.”

Psychocentric: A psychological term for a person who prefers the familiar and is not open to new experiences. Psychocentric travellers are said to prefer trips close to home and to seek familiar environments with which they are comfortable.

Allocentric: Outwardly focussed, interested in others, not egocentric. Allocentric travellers are said to be drawn to adventure travel.

Swampdog Fish and Chips
186 Vulture Street, South Brisbane
Ph: 32553715
Open: 7 days 12 noon to 8.30pm
http://www.swampdog.com

The Cheapskate Date Goes To…Casa Italia

The Cheapskate Date was sceptical, and I was still traumatised from eating at the Spaghetti House, so we tentatively poked our heads around the door of the Casa Italia Community Centre. Italians, lots of them, eating and drinking and generally making merry on a Friday night.

Entrance to Casa Italia
Entrance to Casa Italia

Fabulous. It has been a couple of months since I got to inflict my execrable Italian on anyone. ‘Buona sera. Un tavola per due?’. The entree to the Italian fest was momentarily halted when the lady at the front desk explained as it was a club I needed to live more than 50km away or be a member. I couldn’t really look her in the eye and claim to be an out of towner, so I joined at a very reasonable $5 for a two year membership.

The set up is simple, with about 20 tables in what is basically a function room. The menu has eight pastas to pick from, some ravioli and tortellini under ‘Angelo’s Specials’, four scallopine dishes and a large pizza menu. To start, the Date and I shared a Penne Siciliana ($16). The pasta sauce was a neapolitan sauce with added capers, anchovies, olives, garlic and chilli. It was full of huge flavours though with a big chilli hit, which I suspect might be a bit heavy handed for some tastes.

Penne Siciliana
Penne Siciliana

For main we shared the Saltimbocca ($22) – it was a cheapskate date – and an Italian salad ($6). The veal was thin, perfectly cooked and seasoned and the salad simple and authentic.
Saltimbocca and salad
Saltimbocca and salad

“The food is intoxicating,’ said the CD halfway through the veal. Something was intoxicating but more likely the Sicilian white wine we were drinking with Friday night gusto. Sitting at Casa Italia you fell like you are part of a large Italian family. A number of people wandered past our table to check we were having a good time and when we looked like we might leave, Angelo from the kitchen urged us to stay. ‘We kick nobody out. This is a club not a restaurant,’ he said.
The CD maintains his anonymity
The CD maintains his anonymity

Casa Italia serves simple, honest, well priced Italian food. The bar service is eccentric. None of the wines on the list were actually available, so procuring a wine is through an arcane process of negotiation which neither I nor the CD mastered. The club offers the sort of food and menu you can find in a thousand family owned trattorias across Italy. But that is what I like and find comforting. The sense it is a social club for local Italian families remains strong, but at the same time they are very welcoming of other people coming along and go out of their way to ensure you enjoy the food you are served.

Casa Italia
26 Gray Street, New Farm
Tel 07 3358 4150
Open Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights

10 Food Questions – Jenny McCown

Jenny McCown
Jenny McCown

1. Food for you is what? Comfort
2. What was your favourite food/meal as a child? Pollo cooked for my birthday. A Persian chicken dish cooked with crunchy rice on the bottom.
3. What did you have for dinner last night? Beef ragu with maize tagliatelle with a mixed green leaf and fennel salad.
4. Favourite restaurant? Kopi Timan at Manuka in Canberra.
5. Do you grow food, and if so, what? Kale, cherry tomatoes, basil, parsley, chervil, coriander, garlic chives, broccoli, celery, rocket, spinach, mixed lettuce, eggplant, french beans, silverbeet…
6. Local hidden gem? Gillian’s Cafe in East Brisbane
7. Your favourite food shop? New Farm Deli
8. What do you hope never to eat again? Raw meat
9. How often do you cook? When my husband’s not at home.
Most used cookbook? Internet.

Around the Corner at Sixes and Sevens

Once you get over the dissonance of an Americana bar situated within a Queenslander, it is easy to get comfortable at Sixes and Sevens, on the corner of James and Arthur Streets. A brother bar to the Cru Bar in James Street, Sixes and Sevens is so crowded on the weekend, with a lively and relatively youthful clientele, it is hard to squeeze past them on the footpath. Lunch on Thursday is a much more sedate experience and a good way to do a leisurely check-out of the menu.

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The menu moves from snacks at the bar to share plates, such chicken wings and prawn pick-up sticks, to ‘hungry’ and ‘off the grill-carved’. You can add a number of sides, including potato bake and a green salad, as well as a cheese board and two desserts for those so inclined. We started with one of the bar snacks, a smokey eggplant with white beans a and feta dip served with some warmed sourdough ($9).  The dip was like a baba ganoush  with a spin. Garlicky and tasty.

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Bar snacks

For mains, we bypassed the ‘hungry’, and went for the ‘off the grill-carved’ with a roast pork loin with the house coleslaw and a chicken supreme with a cajun rub and a corn salsa ($20). The slices of pork were slightly sweet with a southern glaze, served with a generous chunk of crackling and a finely sliced coleslaw with a decent viniagrette dressing

Cajun chicken
Cajun chicken

The servings are generous and the food well prepared and designed to complement a civilised drink in a comfortable bar. Sixes and Sevens feels like sitting inside a whiskey barrel, surrounded by dark, wooden walls and lit by large, metallic lights hanging over the small bar tables. What makes this different from a bar in America is the food. It is way, way better at Sixes and Sevens.
Inside the bar
Inside the bar

Sixes and Sevens
67 James Street, Fortutude Valley
07 3358 6067
Open 7 days 11am to midnight
http://www.sixes.com.au

The Spaghetti House

The Spaghetti House
The Spaghetti House

It was my brother’s birthday and he thought we should try the Spaghetti House in Boundary Street, West End. It opened earlier in the year and was always full, he said, and the place is so popular they recently expanded into a next door shop. Getting a booking is an energetic exercise. There is an online booking system where a number of time slots is listed. Apparently you can’t come at a time of your convenience, but of theirs. And this comes with a warning that the bookings are for 90 minutes and then they turn over the tables. How relaxing and welcoming. And they like to confirm that booking. As well as an email confirmation, I had a call from the restaurant the day of the booking and then another one as I was driving over to ensure we were still coming. It all seemed a bit excessive for a booking for three.

When you are there, the front of house staff are achingly desperate for you to like the place. The menu is long, and as expected, dominated by pasta dishes with 28 listed. They cover the usual pastas such as carbonara, primavera, pesto, lasagna and ravioli. As well, there is bruschetta and antipasto to start and a much smaller selection of secondi which includes scallopine, chicken and a couple of fish dishes. Then it gets weird again. The waiter dissuaded us from ordering a pasta as a primi and a main as being ‘too much’ despite the availability of piccolo servings of pasta.

Whitebait
Whitebait

So we quickly re-calibrated and for entree we shared fried whitebait with caper aioli ($12.90) and a caprese salad ($12.90). The servings of whitebait were huge and not helped by being cooked in not-quite-fresh oil. The caprese salad was let down by inferior tomatoes and as the basis of the dish is simple and quality ingredients, this was a disappointment. Most of the entree ended back in the kitchen.

The mains were not much better. Being the Spaghetti House, I was keen to indulge, but the spaghetti pesto ($17.90) was tasteless and the pasta overcooked. My brother’s Saltimbocca with gnocchi ($22.90) was tough and over salted. As he has a heavy hand with the salt shaker, it must have been really over salted. The third main, a filled gnocchi with scallops, was filling but not particularly subtle.

Saltimbocca with gnocchi
Saltimbocca with gnocchi

To finish off my brother ordered the semi freddo($9.90) but they forgot the semi and it was fully freddo littered with frozen strawberries and raspberries.

The 'fully' freddo
The ‘fully’ freddo

The popularity of the Spaghetti House is mystifying. There is nothing subtle or engaging about any of the flavours presented, even for quite simple dishes which only required quality, fresh produce. The wait staff are engaging but they quickly need to redirect the energy from the front of house to the kitchen to bring the food into line with their aspirations.

The Spaghetti House
Shop B, 120 Boundary Street, West End
(07) 3844 4844
Open Tues to Sunday for lunch and dinner
http://www.spaghettihouse.com