Spontaneous Dainty

Dainty Sichuan
176 Toorak Road, South Yarra (map)
9078 1686
Closed Tuesdays

So not to boast or anything, but last night Matt and I *may* have hit upon the perfect combination of Dainty dishes.


Dainty Sichuan, home to the best authentic Sichuan food in Melbourne, moved from its former scuzzy Chinatown laneway location to posh South Yarra in 2009. Its current digs have fancy pictures on the walls and bigger rooms, but the atmosphere remains chaotic and bustling with students grouped around hotpots. I introduced Matt and S to Dainty a few months and they've gone back repeatedly. We decided late in the afternoon yesterday to catch up for a spontaneous dinner, and Matt and S brought along their friend J. Our mission: to order the perfect combination of Dainty dishes.


Four dishes is the perfect amount for four people. No entrees or extras, other than steamed rice and a few Tsingtaos which we sent Matt to get from the fetch-it-yourself fridge by the stairs.

We tried the cumin lamb slices ($24.80) on Matt's first Dainty visit, and he and S have ordered them on each of their subsequent visits. The heat in the dish is a triple threat (chilli, sichuan pepper and cumin) blended together masterfully. The cumin is brilliant. Don't be scared off by the fact that it has a 3 chilli rating (the maximum) in the menu - we reckon it's more like a 2 chilli dish.


The Kong Pao prawns ($25.80, 2 chilli rating) were juicy and sticky and sweet and sour, everything a good Kong Pao/Gong Bao dish should be. Because I am wussier than Matt and S, I left some of my chillies on my plate.


For the first time we ordered the pork threads with garlic shoots ($20.80) and were well pleased with the result. Described in the menu as "Sichuan home style", the dish was spiked with lots of ginger and slightly milder Sichuan pepper (though it still had a 2 chilli rating).


And last but certainly not least, the legendary fish flavoured eggplant. New York culinary enfant terrible David Chang (who recently announced the planned expansion of his empire to Sydney, thus ensuring renewed #momofukurage in Melbourne) declared Dainty's eggplant to be the best thing he's eaten in Australia, enthusing to Gourmet Traveller: "They fry it, I think they roll it in sugar and fry it again, and then they toss it in chilli madness."

This would have to be one of my top 10 favourite dishes in Melbourne. The 2-chilli-rating chilli is pickled, and the use of sugar and corn flour help give the eggplant the most sensational sticky texture: lightly crisp on the outside and meltingly soft on the inside. $17.80 for a small mountain of the stuff, and worth every last cent.


The bill came to just over $40 each and we floated down the stairs in a happy post-Dainty haze. MUST RETURN SOON.

North by NorthSouth, South Yarra

To brighten up this drizzly Friday morning: some totally gratuitous breakfast food porn. Oozing.


NorthSouth Eatery
760 Chapel Street, South Yarra (map)
9827 6221
Sun-Tues 7am-5pm, Wed-Sat 7am-9pm

The food porn in question is a dish of two eggs poached at 60 degrees, salmon pastrami, dill and salmon roe ($16), enjoyed a few weekends ago at recent South Yarra addition NorthSouth Eatery.

I gotta tell you, this was one helluva breakfast. The cured salmon, sliced nice and thick, had a frosting made from a secret blend of herbs and spices along its edge. When pierced the slow poached eggs pulsated their yolks in slow motion across the plate, and the juicy salmon roe gave the dish bursts of texture and flavour.


No less impressive was my dining companion's dish, the leek, zucchini and taleggio omelette ($12). At last, a photo of an omelette on Melbourne Gastronome that doesn't look boring! The pretty, pretty zucchini flowers are a huge help.


NorthSouth combines the skills of Roger Fowler (longtime general manager at Stokehouse) and Ron O'Bryan (former chef at Church St Enoteca and SlowDown!@Harley Court). It's open every day for breakfast and lunch, and for dinner in the second half of the week. Having previously enjoyed Ron's food at Church St Enoteca, I'm keen to head back there soon to try the lunch/dinner menu. The wine list sounds promising too: it was put together by Jeremy Shiell (sommelier at the Royal Mail Hotel in Dunkeld).

The name NorthSouth suits given its location, at the very northern tip of South Yarra. DJ and I live only a stone's throw away across the river, and we consider anything south of Swan Street and north of Toorak Road to be in the 'demilitarized zone' in Melbourne's North Side/South Side culture wars. Yarra DMZ, represent!


As a bonus, NorthSouth supplies Sugadeaux Cupcakes (try the salted caramel, the red velvet and the Mexican chili choc) made by the Cupcake Queen herself, my good friend Jess. And don't let the photo of my wussy weak latte deceive you: NorthSouth makes excellent REAL coffee too!

Al fresco at Bond Street Cafe & Wine Bar

Bond Street Cafe & Wine Bar
4A Bond Street, South Yarra (map)
9824 1161

Last night I went to the movies with good friends CD and best-friend-K (to FINALLY see Avatar, in all its 3D glory). When the girls raised the possibility of grabbing a bite beforehand, I suggested a place I hadn't yet visited but had had recommended to me several times by trusted advisors: Bond Street Cafe & Wine Bar. I'm notoriously picky about eating Italian food in restaurants, given the quality of my Nonna's cooking, but I'm happy to report that BSC&WB pushed my foodie buttons.


We'd already placed our order, but then I realised that olive all'ascolana were on the menu so I promptly requested a serve for us to share ($10). Olives stuffed with veal then crumbed and fried - a few these sinful little babies makes an entirely excellent antipasto. We don't have fried antipasti much in our part of Italy, so it was only when I first went to Rome that I was able to really appreciate how good a plate of fritti misti can be. Nobody does fried antipasti better than the Romans. :)


The girls ordered fried inizi: CD had some rather curious, tempuraesque frittelle made of calamari and summer vegetables, served with aioli ($13), and b-f-K had some crochette di melanzane con basilico e provoletta ($12). I particularly liked the crochette: they may look plain, but the smoked mozzarella tasted great with the eggplant and basil.


I was pretty psyched to see vitello tonnato on the menu ($13), as it's another favourite Italian dish of mine that Nonna sometimes makes. The combination of roasted veal and tuna sauce can throw the uninitiated, but it's delicious. The version at Bond was sexed up with cubes of seared yellow fin tuna, torn anchovy fillets and teeny tiny capers. Highly recommended.


For main course b-f-K ordered the maccheroncelli con ragù di agnello ($26), which she loved, and CD ordered the pasta special: tagliatelle with pancetta and zucchini in a white wine sauce. In both cases, the pasta was just al dente enough - another thing I get very picky about in Italian restaurants!


I ordered the fish special: it had been described to me by a waitress as snapper but when it came out it was swordfish, and the waiter insisted that it had always been swordfish. No matter. It was served with delicious Sardinian fregula and eggplant.


An excellent wine list and sleek minimalist decor added to the attraction of the venue, as did the location: close to the cinema, but tucked down a side street so as to minimise interaction with the skankiness of Chapel Street on a Saturday night. The hard shiny surfaces mean that the interior of the restaurant can get a little noisy when full, but I suggest perching on stools outside as we did for a lovely (and reasonably priced, all things considered) al fresco meal.

Two coffee cafes, south side

In the space of two weeks I visited two separate and equally coffee-focused cafes south of the Yarra. These are their stories. CHUNG CHUNG!

Crue Coffee Lounge
194 Toorak Road, South Yarra (map)
9827 5058


When I recently tried out the new Outpost by St Ali Aaron suggested I also check out Crue, located only a stone's throw away on Toorak Road. Crue has been operating since about the start of the year and is also very much a coffee-focussed cafe where food plays second fiddle.

Coffee fetishists can enjoy watching their coffee (one of the many single or mixed origins on offer) being ground, poured and served via the live video camera feeds on the screens behind the counter. When I went in with Mum and Dad, we had coffees made from beans a customer had brought over from London coffee house Flat White.


While the food may play second fiddle to the coffee, we were all very taken with our brunches. Mum loved the taste (and the presentation) of the bircher muesli with poached pear, banana, kiwi fruit and antioxidant juice ($10).


Dad attacked the huge serve of baked eggs with masala spiced du Puy lentils, spinach and scented raita ($14). My order was a perfect hangover cure: dukkah spiced fried eggs with organic Merguez sausages, rocket, flat bread and roasted tomatoes ($14.50). Both dishes packed plenty of punch.


There were two other details about Crue that I loved. One was the blackboard of brainteasers, which is updated weekly. Answer all the questions correctly and get a free coffee.


The other detail I loved was next to the three group Synesso machine - a jar of dog biscuits. :)



Dukes Coffee Roasters
169 Chapel Street, Windsor (map)
9521 4884


Last Sunday I was meeting the divine Miss S for brunch (before she jets back overseas to continue her showbiz career). I suggested we try Dukes, which had been recommended to me by Jack. Dukes is in Windsor, just a few doors down from Borsch Vodka & Tears, so I strolled down from Richmond in the sunshine.

As you can see from the photos, the Dukes roaster is right there in the back of the cafe, and coffee paraphernalia abounds. I wanted to have a siphon* coffee, but the blondie serving us said they couldn't oblige so I settled for a latte instead.

* Can a nice coffee geek explain to me whether I should be spelling it siphon or syphon? I've seen both spellings used more or less interchangeably online - is there a distinction? Or a stylistic preference?


I rapped Miss S over the knuckles for ordering something as boring and unexciting-for-the-blog as poached eggs with a side serve of bacon ($13.50). I was hoping she'd try something like the buttermilk pancakes with vanilla bean mascarpone and citrus segments in a toffee syrup, or the sweet potato and corn fritters with crispy pancetta, spinach and harissa mayo! :)


I wasn't in the mood for eggs, so on the strength of Jack's recommendation I ordered the burrata on ciabatta toast with asparagus ($15). So glad I did! The fresh, vividly-green asparagus (don't you just love springtime?) tasted fabulous with the creamy, mozzarella-ey cheese and a squeeze of lemon. A great brunch dish.


When we visited, Dukes was PACKED. Blondie waitress apologised when she took our order, saying the kitchen was a little behind and that there may be a wait of about twenty minutes for our food. I appreciated that she told us upfront, and we weren;t bothered by the subsequent wait - it's all about managing expectations, eh?

Specialty coffee: new Outpost by St Ali in South Yarra

Outpost by St Ali
9/9 Yarra Street, South Yarra (map)
no phone yet
currently open 7:30-5pm, Monday to Friday


Outpost by St Ali is the brand new South Yarra outpost of cult specialty coffee house St Ali (read about my St Ali coffee cupping adventures with Slightly Intense Thirty-Something Metrosexuals here). Hyper-confusingly, the address for the Outpost by St Ali is Yarra Street, South Yarra, and the address for the original St Ali is Yarra Place, South Melbourne. Not to be confused with Yarra Street in South Melbourne. Too many Yarras! Too many Souths!


Outpost by St Ali opened last Monday on the ground floor of a big new commercial/residential development, down a side street next to South Yarra train station. Current opening hours are Monday to Friday, just during the day. No weekends now 7 days a week, but just during the daytime. They're still awaiting chairs and tables, a phone and a proper food menu. The oven was delivered yesterday, and the domestic dishwasher will eventually be replaced by a commercial one.


I dropped in there this week with two other food bloggers, Jackie from Eating with Jack and Matt from Abstract Gourmet, currently over here from Perth for a week sampling the best Melbourne's food scene has to offer.

Bloody food bloggers, always taking photos! That's Matt taking photos, and Jack on the right twittering about how Matt and I are taking photos.


The plan is to introduce a simple menu (smaller than that at St Ali) of food that can be prepared in the oven, in addition to the smattering of pastries and rolls currently on offer. An outdoor seating area will follow. For now though, the emphasis is very much on educating people about specialty coffee - the stylish school science lab interior certainly helps! Jack and I just LOVED that matte tiled floor.


The siphon coffee maker (below), being heated by an eerie bright red halogen lamp.


I recognised Aaron, our barista, from his days at Auction Rooms. He showed us around, talked coffee geek technical talk with Matt, and gave me a taste of my first ever cold drip coffee (made using that gorgeous, steampunk-esque cold drip machine pictured below).


My siphon coffee and cold drip coffee side by side. Loved both. I was amazed by how light and sweet the cold drip was in particular.


Speaking of steampunk, how cool (albeit no doubt somewhat inconvenient in this day and age) is that antique cash register? The fresh herbs dotted about the room was another nice touch.


Oh and as you'd expect, plenty of single origin coffees (including beans sourced directly by St Ali rather than through a middleman).


Head there soon and check it out for yourself before everybody finds out about it!

15/10/09 Edited to add:
Hear ye, hear ye: as of this weekend, Outpost by St Ali is now open 7 days a week. Paul Jewson, the chef who started on Monday, is already whipping up some very interesting-looking dishes with the assistance of that gorgeous oven!

Multiple wagyugasms at Jamon Sushi

Jamon Sushi
3 Murphy St, South Yarra (map)
98045710


The other week I went along to the bloggers' dinner organised by Ed from the blog Tomato at Jamon Sushi in South Yarra. The dinner was a 5 hour no-holds-barred wagyupalooza, which has already been well-documented by Neil at the blog At My Table, so like Cin I'll take the short cut and just post my "food porn" photos with a few descriptions. Needless to say, the dinner was absolutely SENSATIONAL and I really really want to go back to Jamon Sushi soon to try Charles' fishy menu, which changes each day depending on what fish is available - if you're interested in dining there (and I highly recommend that you do) you can check in advance what's fresh and will be on the menu by clicking here.


Charles organised a great little wine list for our dinner - we opened all of the bottles on the list and shared them between us.


Beautiful clump of oyster mushrooms (looking a little like something from outer space)...




The wagyu beef in question was Sher Wagyu and was rated 9+. The restaurant is a sashimi bar, and I was perched on a stool watching Charles prepare the entire meal directly in front of me. We watched him trim and slice raw scotch fillet to make up sushi rolls and wagyu sashimi, which was outrageously soft and melt-in-the-mouth.


Charles Greenfield, our maestro of the evening. Read what Ed wrote about him in The Australian here. Charles certainly doesn't brook nonsense when it comes to impertinent questions from bloggers, but when you got him talking about why he cooks, his face lights up and his eyes shine with his passion for sharing good food with others.


The scotch fillet sashimi. Charles took care to show us different cuts of meat prepared in similar ways, so that we could aprpeciate the differences between them. The scotch fillet sashimi was followed by eye fillet sashimi (photo at the top of this post) which tasted a little more 'butch' and was partnered with asparagus and sansho pepper from the slopes of Mt Fuji. Charles makes his own marvellous sweet soy sauce.


As Thanh observed, the wagyu was seared in a turbo-charged version of the humble sandwich press, at 300 degrees celcius. I loved the sliced zucchini and eringi mushrooms mixed with the juices from the meat.


I'm not usually that big a fan of broths, but this shabu shabu - made I believe with a pickled enoki mushroom dashi base - just blew me away. Mellie and I both asked for seconds of the broth on its own!


200 gram wagyu steak wrapped in kitchen paper (note the extensive marbling of the fat) which Charles passed around for us to smell and weigh in our hands.




One of the quirkier dishes - Japanese by way of Spain - consisted of Charles stuffing a wagyu rice roll into a tube of squid for a memorable (and eye-catching)world first.


The leftover wings of the squid were shredded and made into a spicy salad featuring my old favourite: glistening, iridescent, burst-on-your-tongue roe. Two varieties.


Anime was projected on the wall facing the sashimi bar throughout the night.


This cut was porterhouse, seared and served with brussel sprouts (which I actually enjoyed, for once!) and daikon.



The final dish was a salad of spinach soba noodles with more awesome pickled enoki mushrooms and pickled ginger, kelp and of course a tender heart of wagyu fillet. To finish off the meal and aid the digestion, we munched on some slices of nashi pear drizzled with lime juice. Perfection!