Tempura Hajime lives!

Tempura Hajime
60 Park Street, South Melbourne (map)
9696 0051


To mangle a perfectly good Mark Twain quote: rumours of Tempura Hajime's closure have been somewhat exaggerated, despite what you may have heard on twitter or other avenues of industry gossip. I can however confirm that your final opportunity to sample owner/chef Daisuke Miyamoto's tempura wizardry at Tempura Hajime is 13 March 2010. The restaurant will then reopen on 15 March 2010 with its new owner (who, I am assured, is also an excellent chef) at the helm. But if you want to say goodbye to Daisuke and Noriko before they move back to Japan, get in quick and make a booking for one night over the next seven weeks!


Even when you've got your eyes peeled because you know the nondescript entrance is easily missed, you'll still walk past the door to Tempura Hajime the first time. Upon arrival you are ushered into the shadowy little waiting room where you can sit back on a sofa and order a drink.

The reason you need to wait? Because there are only 12 seats in the restaurant - it's a one man show with Daisuke doing all the preparation and cooking before your eyes, serving six diners at a time and just 12 diners per night. The sittings are staggered accordingly.


The menu is fixed, $72 per person. As the name suggests, Tempura Hajime is a tempura counter restaurant and so a degustation of battered, fried morsels awaits. But first, an appetiser of cucumber and minced chicken in a miso-sesame dressing, and sashimi.


Not only was the ocean trout and kingfish sashimi ridiculously fresh, it was served with fresh wasabi. Love.


Daisuke uses three oils to make his tempura: soy bean oil, tea oil and sesame oil. Despite the fact that the majority of the menu is deep fried, it tastes wonderfully light and fresh and pure, and not at all greasy - the proof being in how little oil stains the paper on the serving plate. You can take it from me that all of the following dishes were SUBLIME.


And now for the food porn tempura photos! I think they speak for themselves. Prawn.


Asparagus. Sweet potato.


Tuna and avocado wrapped in nori, served with Japanese mayonnaise and teriyaki sauce.


Corn. John Dory.


Sea urchin wrapped in nori and scallop.


One of my dining companions, that Jess Ho, photographing the tempura oyster for her blog.


Minced prawn stuffed into a mushroom. Minced chicken stuffed in eggplant.


After the tempura, the meal is bulked out with a serve of donburi - on the night we went, we had a delicious kakiagedon.


My other dining companions were knocking back the sake but I decided to grab some chilled umeshu plum wine, which was served by Noriko, Daisuke's lovely wife who runs the front of house. When she indulged and praised my attempts to speak Japanese, I knew I was smitten.


Dessert was a beautifully simple yoghurt panna cotta drizzled with Cointreau and served with a few grapes.


In short, I adored the Tempura Hajime experience and thoroughly recommend it. Get down there!

Beast on a Block at The Point

The Point Albert Park
Aquatic Drive, Albert Park (map)
9682 5566

Sorry, vegetarians: very lambflesh-focused post today!


I'm afraid I'm not the first (or the second) to get around to writing up this event, but despite my tardiness and the interwebs duplication I couldn't resist writing up the AMAZING dinner I was invited to the other week, along with a small group of other Melbourne food bloggers.

The venue was The Point on Albert Park Lake, our host was The Point's executive chef Scott Pickett and on the evening in question Scotty broke down a whole side of lamb before our eyes, talking us through each cut of lamb and how it should be prepared. We then took turns popping into the kitchen to watch Scotty's team plate up one of the courses, and we tried to flesh out the deliberately minimalist menu above by guessing all the ingredients in each dish. So much fun!


I was running late because of a rental inspection that started behind schedule and a Swan Street discretionary taxi FAIL, but the others very politely waited for me to arrive (whilst sipping glasses of bubbly) before we went on a tour through the elegantly-appointed restaurant, behind the scenes into the kitchen and downstairs to one of the meat fridges. Those small red beasties hanging in the photo above are hares.


As Scotty took to the "stage" at the head of the table, we each yummed down a few Kumamoto oysters, freshly shucked and served natural.


The lamb Scotty was breaking down (using a very impressive Swedish steel Mizuno UX10 knife from Japan that had his name engraved on the side in katakana - !!!) was about 6-8 weeks old. It arrives weighing about 6.5-7kg (8-10kg when it was alive).


Scotty took us on a tour through the hindquarters, the forequarters, the rack, the saddle, the neck, etc etc. I loved how, when preparing a crown roast, he peeled back the flesh halfway off the ribs then sat the rack flat so that it looked like a prickly stegosaurus (above left photo). :)


The first official course on the menu was the king salmon: confit New Zealand chinook salmon posed on a dollop of goats curd, accompanied by a Chinese Lantern petal and three types of egg, each more decadent than the last: a quail egg cooked for 2 mins 15 seconds, salmon roe and Osetra black caviar. A potage Parmentier (warm Vichyssoise) was poured over the top. Spec-tac-ular.


I got to sneak into the kitchen to watch as the next course was cooked and plated. Unlike some other bloggers I've never worked in a restaurant (if you don't count the six months of lacklustre waitressing I did at the age of 16 in a rather dreary eastern suburbs French restaurant - I don't), so going behind the scenes was a rare treat for me. The huge vats of stock bubbling away had to be seen to be believed.


Finishing off the chicken in a pan and plating it up. Scotty said that he was inspirated for this dish by his local charcoal chicken joint.


It was a centre cut of roasted chicken wing, stuffed and caramelised with shallots and cream and an emulsion of potato and black truffle. Served on a crispy pumpkin gnocco and topped with a trompette (black death) mushroom. The swoosh of field mushroom and butter puree was stained with squid ink. A flavour EXPLOSION, I tell you.


Next up was butter poached Western Australian marron, fois gras parfait, sprinklings of salmon roe and black Cyprian salt, Chinese Lantern petals, cubes of apple jelly and a drizzled Sauternes reduction. It was a sort of richly-flavoured, "glammed up surf n turf".


Such cute Chinese Lanterns! I should also point out that the charming French sommelier was treating us to some truly lovely wines: the De Bortoli Yarra Vally Reserve Release 2007 Chardonnay was a great match for the food, and I lingered over this Haut-Médoc Bordeaux - the Chateau Tour du Haut-Moulin Cru Bourgeois Supérieur, 2001. Another very, very honourable mention goes to the Dr. Bürklin-Wolf Wachenheimer 2007 Riesling.


And now for the most important dish of the night - the lamb! On her blog, Sarah included a fantastic annotated photograph of this dish, with all of the parts labelled. From left to right, we have the kidney wrapped in jamón ibérico; a single clove of organic garlic confit and topped with a cherry tomato on (off) the vine; pomme fondant topped with glazed shank and an asparagus spear; half a globe artichoke topped with ramp/cannon/cutlet; a single broad bean; crumbed lambs brain sitting on a sauce gribiche; and finally the braised lamb neck in a ras-el-hanout spiced brik pastry spring roll, with curly whirly potato blanched, wrapped around it and deep fried. Modestly titled "a taste of new season lamb" on the menu, this dish was a show-stopper.


Mercifully, our palates were given a chance to breathe then refresh with the pre-dessert: a small tumbler of vodka and cranberry jelly, topped with basil foam and granita made from San Pellegrino blood orange aranciata and limonata. Loved it, particularly the basil vs cranberry and the foam vs ice textures.


Two different desserts were brought out for alternating guests, but Jack and I wisely decided to share two between us. For the pineapple dish, some of the pieces had been charred with a blowtorch, the others had been done sous-vide with chilli and their natural juices, then caramelised. There was also yoghurt ice cream, sprinkled bikky crumbs, colourless ginger jelly, baby lemon balm shoots and decadent coconut cream in tuille rolls. Tiny liquorice dots on the edge of the plate finished it off beautifully.


The other dessert was soft Valrhona chocolate and chestnut tortellini filled with ganache, served with coffee ice cream, chocolate and chestnut mousse (hidden under the ice cream in the photo below), caramelised pear and a foam made from French-imported tonka beans. Of the two I preferred the pineapple - the contrast between the two types of pineapple rocked my socks. Plus I was a complete sucker for the matching Muscat de Beaumes de Venise.

To well and truly finish us off a range of petits fours were brought out: salted caramel chocs, plum jellies and little musk marshmallows.


Once the banquet was finally at an end, several of us kicked back for a further few hours with the chef, laughing and talking food and knocking back stout (I liked the one I had from the Bellarine Brewing Company, brewed with Portarlington Blue Mussels). Scotty, himself an occasional blogger, is completely passionate about food and the sharing of food knowledge. Thanks a million Scotty for hosting us!


The other food bloggers and I dined compliments of the house on this occasion, but you'll be glad to know that many of the dishes we had are available on the current "Tasting Point" menu, $95 per person or $155 per person with matching wines. Do yourself a favour and try some of these amazing dishes while they're still in season!

Gigibaba: a most sminki pinki addition to Smith Street

Gigibaba
102 Smith Street, Collingwood (map)
9486 0345

After two failed attempts to visit Gigibaba since it opened late last year, I was determined that nothing would stop me from dining there the third time around. Contrary to popular belief, it is not actually impossible to get in at Ismail Tosun's tiny, incredibly popular, no-bookings, modern Turkish restaurant. You just need to:

• make peace with the fact that there will almost certainly be a wait of at least 40 minutes;


• get at least one of your party to show up as early as possible to get your name put on the waiting list; and


• go somewhere else for a pre-dinner drink and await your phone call.

There are plenty of great places to drink nearby in Fitzroy while you wait (eg Gertrude Street Enoteca, Caz Reitop's Dirty Secrets). Birdie and I went across the road to enjoy a mocktail and an umeshu, respectively, in the spic 'n span Cocoro Japanese Pottery Cafe. I must return to Cocoro soon to buy one of the cute little ceramic spoons and to try the gobo salad that the latest Cheap Eats guide raves about.


We were called back to Gigibaba and were seated at one of the few tables at the front. From our vantage point, we had a great view of the sumptuously-patterned bar, twinkling under a loose canopy of threaded, oversized, low-wattage, bare light bulbs. Drool.


It's billed as a "Turkish tapas" restaurant. Although the dishes are inexpensive, bear in mind that they are very small serves - and five or six dishes adds up quickly! The food is, however, delicious.

When I'd told her where I'd be going to dinner, one of my Melbourne Gastronome readers had insisted I try the pickled octopus salad ($8). She was right to recommend it - the octopus was tender and oh so nicely piquant, very similar to the way my nonna makes it. Thanks, B! :)


The skinny little vineleaf sarma rolls were filled with lamb and served with a dill yoghurt ($9). I also loved the baharat spiced BBQ mushrooms topped with a parsley and feta crust ($9). Birdie normally hates feta but even she was won over by the stuffed mushies.


Bizarrely enough, the highlight of the meal for me was the $8 cauliflower. Yeah, I know. Cauliflower! The world's most boring vegetable! And yet... spiced with zatar... it was heavenly.


We finished off the savoury dishes with lovely fresh eggplant-wrapped BBQ prawns ($12) and (an admittedly slightly unexciting) braised rabbit with sucuk ($18). I'm not normally much of a bread eater, but the restaurant-made bread brought out to mop up the rabbit sauce was just beautiful.


I loved how all of the surplus chairs were hooked up on the wall facing the bar, serving a Brother Baba Budan-like decorative function as well as a utilitarian one. :)


Bird and I then shared the dessert platter (I think it was $12 or $15). The desserts offered in the platter change daily. We were served two little diamonds of dense, moist orange and almond cake (again, very similar to how nonna makes it!), two little ladyfinger pastries that just dissolved deliciously in the mouth, and a gorgeous pot of crème brûlée containing both ginger and one of my very favourite liqueurs, Poire Williams. Best crème brûlée I've had in ages.


As was mentioned in the Epicure, Gigibaba is a little TOO popular for its own good, and - for the sake of the sanity of its small family of staff - has cut back on its opening hours (no more weekend brunches or Sunday dinners). It's still open for dinner Tuesdays to Sundays, but be prepared for a bit of a wait. It's worth it!