Wednesday 11 April 2012

Fortnightly round-up (11 April)

Salad

There has been a spate of food stores adjoining cafes/restaurants opening in the last few months: think Albert Street Food & Wine, and the Mini Marche at Hardware Societe. Now Southern Thai cafe Middle Fish has also started stocking Thai ingredients that they use in their dishes for you to take home (I was particularly taken with the Police Dog Brand tins). Bubbly proprietor Pla is only too happy to explain to you how the products are best used.

Police dog brandMiddle Fish

Speaking of Middle Fish, their kang tai pla (Southern style anchovy curry, $15.50) is the breakfast of champions.

Middle Fish curry

Coming soon to a blog near you: an article about lots and lots of different small batch gins and tonics (here's a sneak preview). It's taken a long while, but I've nearly finished it. I've been reading some gin literature as part of my research, and have particularly enjoyed The Bartender's Gin Compendium by Gaz Regan, and Craze: Gin and Debauchery in an Age of Reason by Jessica Warner.

Mass gin tasting

The organic bento at Kappaya Japanese Soul Food Cafe at Abbotsford Convent. Strongly recommended.

Kappaya bento

Some happy snaps of Easter culinary highlights: Mum's hot cross buns, served at our traditional Good Friday Champagne Breakfast;

Hot cross buns

Paola's chicken brodo with handmade agnolotti (stuffed with crispy pancetta and roasted peas), served at Sunday lunch;

Paola's brodo

céleri rémoulade (quite possibly my favourite salad of all time. OF ALL TIME!);

Celeri remoulade

and a rather scary looking flourless chocolate cake. Who needs Easter eggs?

Flourless chocolate cake


Links of Note:

- Mel wrote a great post about the ethics of restaurant food blogging on Fooderati. I really wish all bloggers would abide by these principles - the bad apples that don't give the rest of us a bad name. I like too that Mel included some advice for restaurants as well: don't encourage bad behaviour by courting it!

- Food blog ethics aren't just confined to the "dining out" blogs: the vexed issue of recipe copyright keeps cropping up on "dining in" blogs. Local bloggers Green Gourmet Giraffe and Confessions of a Food Nazi have written about it, noting that the author of Lambs' Ears and Honey has posted a follow up post to the original one that sparked the controversy.

- Squid Ink, L.A. Weekly's food blog, posted a neat Venn diagram showing L.A.'s idea of Mexican food vs what Mexicans really eat.

- To score [wine] or not to score: that is the question, writes Tom Hogan on I Love Riesling.

- Keen to relive the MFWF? Dining Nirvana wrote a wrap-up of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, including a handy list of blog posts by other bloggers reviewing MFWF events: part one, part two.

- Gorgeous post on Fox's Lane about a community cider pressing day.

- DineSmart 2011 raises $352,328 to fund 91 Community Projects. Bravo to all who donated/fundraised, especially to Chin Chin for their Victorian champion fundraising effort!

- BOOKMARK: Eater's The 38 Essential New York Restaurants, April '12.

- Peruvian food in Surry Hills? Yes please. From A Table for Two.

- Also drooling over photos of new Sydney restaurant Sixpenny on The Unbearable Lightness of Being Hungry. I'm heading up to Sydney next month: now taking suggestions on where I should eat and drink...

8 comments:

uberholiday said...

Happy Easter Claire, I miss your blog, haven't been looking back much since i've graduated from unimelb, anyway i'll be heading back soon for a short trip and will be take notes of your upcoming haunts!

Can't wait for pacific house and movida though :)

Anonymous said...

those hot cross buns look amazing! can't wait for the gin post

Anh said...

That Thai place sounds awesome. In my list now!

leetranlam said...

Another great round-up, Claire! Sounds like you had an awesome break and a number-one-with-a-bullet remoulade probably didn't hurt! Awesome to hear that you'll be back in Sydney soon. Definitely try Sixpenny if you have the time (or pence!) And you may like the weekend Japanese brunch at Kuki Tanuki given your pro-Convent breakfast (which covers similar culinary territory). Thanks also for the kind mention! I'm lucky that Will takes pretty great photos.

Unknown said...

Looking forward to the gin post - was wondering why you kept on saying on Twitter that you were having cases of gin delivered!

Ashley said...

Ooh, Kappaya's bento boxes have onigiri again! When they first moved from Johnston street to Abbotsford they didn't have them on the menu for ages, which broke my heart. Will have to trek back soon!

Alex http://taleof2kitchens.net/ said...

Can't wait to see your gin post and those hot cross buns look amazing!
You're making me crave Melbourne again - lucky I'm visiting soon, I'll have to visit a couple of your recommendations.

Melbourne bars dude said...

I would like to head dive into that chocolate cake!