Five fabulous flavours from the last fortnight I feel compelled to share with you

It's been a busy couple of weeks for me at work, but I wanted to write a few short paragraphs about five dishes I've been lucky enough to have over the last fortnight that have been just a little bit special.


One: the elotes callejeros at Mamasita.

Mamasita
Level 1, 11 Collins Street, Melbourne (map)
9650 3821


Lunch last Tuesday was at Mamasita with the beautiful KT. I wrote about Mamasita when it first opened in February, but on that visit I neglected to order what has now become my favourite Mamasita dish, the elotes callejeros ($3.80 each). Chargrilled corn with queso, chipotle mayonnaise and lime. DROOL. If you don't like these... I don't think we can be friends any more.


Two: the primo piatto of pickled green tomatoes and burrata at Ladro.

Ladro (Gertrude)
224 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy (map)
9415 7575


Best-friend-K and I went to Ladro on Friday night. While we were sipping negronis and waiting for our pizze to arrive, we shared an exquisite entree of pickled green tomatoes served with burrata and drizzled with olive oil ($12.50). Burrata (a mozzarella cheese with a gooey mozzarella-and-cream centre) seems to be everywhere at the moment. Served with mouth-watering sweet and sour pickled green tomatoes? Perfect.



Three: my mother's pasta al forno con funghi, spinaci e sugo di carne.

To taste this one, you'll have to cajole your way into my family. On Wednesday night we facilitated a birthday face-to-face Skype chat between my Nonna and Nonno in Melbourne, and Nonna's sister Zia Clara and Zio Mario in Italy ("Che meraviglia, questo Skype!" my Nonno kept exclaiming). For dinner afterwards, Mum made her special pasta al forno. To stop it from being too heavy or stodgy, she alternates pasta layers: one with Nonna's fresh sugo bolognese and mushrooms sauteed with her secret ingredient (a quarter of a Star funghi porcini stock cube, shhhhh), and then one with béchamel and spinach wilted with smoked garlic. Parmigiano between every layer, natch!



Four: the grass fed steak tartare at Cumulus Inc.

Cumulus Inc
45 Flinders Lane, Melbourne (map)
9650 1445


I know I've waxed lyrical about Cumulus several times over, but as I was on my way there last Thursday to meet the lovely Emily from ...It Pleases Us, I realised this would be the first time I'd ever visited for lunch. I ain't gonna lie: I was nursing a hangover. A hangover that called for something drastic. Hmmmm oh I don't know, how about the GRASS FED STEAK TARTARE?

My fuzzy logic told me that if raw steak ($21) couldn't make me feel better, nothing would. And oh it was good, people. We also shared one of my favourite Cumulus dishes, the wagyu bresaola with fresh horseradish ($14, alas sadly no longer served with remoulade) and Em's favourite, the crispy school prawns sauteed with chilli and garlic ($14). Be sure to eat those suckers in their entirety, as they were intended.



Five: the dessert sticks (hell, and everything else) at Pierre Roelofs' dessert evenings at Cafe Rosamond.

Cafe Rosamond
Rear 191 Smith Street, Fitzroy (map)
9419 2270


Count me in as a member of Pierre Roelofs' enthusiastic cheer squad. His are the most creative, exciting desserts currently on offer in Melbourne. Last month I wrote a loveletter to the event he and Raúl Moreno Yagüe held at the MFWF, and I mentioned his forthcoming dessert-only Thursday evenings at Cafe Rosamond. They started this week, and I trotted along with Jess.

I'm telling you, if you're anywhere near Smith Street on a Thursday night, you HAVE to drop in to Rosamond for dessert. There are no bookings, so just rock up between 7 and 11 and hopefully manage to snare a seat (there are only 25). Order tea or coffee and either one, two or three dishes ($20/$30/$40 - great value considering the number of elements, quality ingredients and time-consuming techniques involved in the creation of each dish).

We had two each. One had a cube of pear pound cake, toasted couscous, honey cream that was just madness, pear sorbet and toasted millet. The other was the "Black Gold" dish I wrote about in my MFWF round-up: it included poached pineapple and (SENSATIONAL) dehydrated pineapple, rigatoni filled with mascarpone, syphon coffee gel, ground Yirgacheffe coffee beans, gold leaf, coffee meringue, dark chocolate granules and micro leaves.

The dishes on offer will change weekly. If there's one thing you need to try though, it's one of the dessert sticks ($9 each). They are glass tubes the circumference of a cigar, filled with four different flavours, and to consume them you tip them up to your mouth and, er, suck hard for a flavour explosion. The ones we tried on Thursday were filled with dried white chocolate, peach, pistachio and rose... and I have it on good authority that next week's will contain pancake, maple syrup and banana (!!!).

Cumulus Inc continues to seduce

In need of a stiff drink on Friday night, I met fellow food bloggers Ed, Jess and Penny at Der Raum for cocktails. We ended up having several, from cucumber-tinged Millers martinis disgorging clouds of liquid nitrogen (no, really) to the cocktail called Pharmacy (which involved a pill jar full of pear and roasted capsicum gin, a syringe full of Aperol and a red and white pill filled with citrus sherbet).

Follow up multiple Der Raum cocktails with a Love Pho phở chaser, then Japanese beers and gin and tonics chez moi until the wee hours and you're left with several hungover food bloggers come Saturday morning. As I shuffled through the Prahran Market in a near-catatonic state, unable to make decisions re mushroom selection and wincing as trolleys scraped noisily over concrete, it was only the prospect of dinner that night at Cumulus Inc that kept me going. Oh, Cumulus!

Cumulus Inc.
45 Flinders Lane, Melbourne (map)
9650 1445


Regular readers will know that I'm an ardent fan of Andrew McConnell's CBD Eating House and Bar. I've had breakfast at Cumulus Inc several times, but the two times I'd previously visited for dinner were both over a year ago, so I was keen for a nocturnal revisit. Luckily, best-friend-K was easily talked into it (after spending all day at intensive classes for a masters subject she's doing, she was in dire need of a few drinks and a good feed).


With no other commitments that night, we'd agreed that we'd be happy to wait for however long it'd take to get a table, given the no bookings policy. We got there just after 7pm and were ushered to the corner next to the coat rack, where we stood sipping on drinks and waiting... and waiting... and waiting... an hour and a half, before being seated up at the bar overlooking the kitchen. Yes it's a pain to have to wait that long (especially while standing), but mad props to the charismatic host who was doing a great job keeping the punters happy under the circumstances.

Later in the evening he dropped by to see how our meal was going, addressing us by name and chatting briefly about Piemontese wines (our 2007 Sottimano Dolcetto d'Alba, $62, was exquisite).


Any flicker of irritation we'd felt at the wait was promptly snuffed out as soon as the food started arriving. We eschewed ordering oysters this time, starting instead with grilled quail halves wrapped in vine leaf, with pistachio and labne ($7 each). Cunningly skewered and devilishly juicy.


The kitchen charcuterie selection ($23). Clockwise from top left: hand cut Sicilian salami, prosciutto di Parma, wagyu bresaola with remoulade and pheasant terrine with prune. While the fennel seed-flecked salami and the prosciutto were perfectly nice, the bresaola and terrine were exceptional.

I already raved about the wagyu bresaola last time: I love remoulade and bresaola, but it's the teeny tiny shavings of fresh horseradish that really make the dish memorable. And as for the pheasant terrine, the punchy gamey flavour was nicely counterbalanced by the spiced prunes. Don't know how I'll be able to resist ordering these two again next time.


B-f-K is not much of a gnocchi fan, but I cajoled her into letting me order the baked gnocchi with Jerusalem artichokes, taleggio and truffle ($17). There is NOTHING in this dish that I don't love. Yes it was super-rich, but that's the point. Shared, it was brilliant: I couldn't decide whether I liked the enveloping softness of the cheesy gnocchi or the texture of the Jerusalem artichokes more.


The one dish that left us a little lukewarm was the Rockdale 240 day grain fed scotch fillet, with glazed shallots, nettle and horseradish ($38). Don't get me wrong, the rare fillet had been expertly prepared... but the shaved horseradish just made me reminisce about the wagyu bresaola, and as I mentioned in the review of our first visit b-f-K is not big with the nettles. We both agreed that we should have skipped a big meat dish in favour of the cracked wheat and freekeh salad with preserved lemon and barberries that we'd enjoyed on our first visit.


We did however both adore the special that we ordered, roasted organic (fantastically tasty) baby carrots with dukkah and labne. Because one can never have too much labne.


And for dessert, we ordered the rum baba with aged rum ($17). After the meal we'd had, we really ought to have settled for just a pair of lemon curd madeleines instead... but I'd had my heart set on ordering the rum baba again, ever since I tried it over a year ago at an extravagant weeknight Cumulus dinner with the charming A.


When it arrived I couldn't resist clapping my hands together in appreciative glee. Taken from the oven before our eyes, the light, fluffy, briochey cake was posed in a small puddle of crème pâtissière and brought to us. It was accompanied by a bottle of 7 year old Havana Club from the bar, which was left with us so that we could pour as much or as little rum as we wanted. Make no mistake, the Cumulus Inc rum baba is TO DIE FOR.


Everyone's favourite fictional Belgian, Hercule Poirot, was "inordinately fond" of this dessert. Can't add too much rum though, for fear of damaging the "little grey cells"... :)


Oh, and at the end of the meal Andrew McConnell walked in (having finished meal service at Cutler & Co) and came over for a brief chat. I tried to remain cool and casual, but was secretly totally starstruck and geeked out that Andrew McConnell not only recognised and remembered me, but mentioned and thanked me for the write-up I did in March on the MF&WF Oyster Class. I'm such a food nerd!

Oysters at Cumulus Inc: learning, tasting, shucking

From the tasting notes:
Une huitre c'est un poisson fait comme une noix - An oyster is a fish posing as a nut
Jean-Charles, La Foire aux Cancres

I mostly gave the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival a wide berth this year. As mentioned in comments on a great post about the MFWF on Confessions of a Food Nazi, there's a lot of razzle dazzle, marketing hype and idolatry surrounding the many, many exorbitantly priced events in the program that rather turns me off them. And while I'm certainly not immune to becoming a ditzy fangirl of a chef whose food I've tasted and loved (Exhibit A: Mr Andrew McConnell *hemhem*), I generally dislike celebrity chefs and just couldn't work up any enthusiasm for any of the name-dropping Masterclasses.

That said, the one MFWF event that I went to that I loved was the Oyster Class run by Cumulus Inc and Moonlight Flat Oysterage: we learned about the history and cultivation of oysters, then had an oyster tasting and shucking lesson. I took as my guest my father (and oyster fiend) Rumpole, as a belated birthday present.


Very cunningly, Cumulus Inc had arranged for the class to be held adjacent to the restuarant, in the exhibition space it had annexed from fortyfivedownstairs. It proved to be a fantastic chic venue.


Throughout the night we were served wines supplied and presented by Scott Wasley from The Spanish Acquisition. First up was the 2006 Raventos Y Blanc De Blanc Cava 'Reserva' Penedes. I loved Rumpole's notes on the tasting notes.


Just before the class began we were served delicious little pastries with anchovy, olives and onion. A girl on our table confirmed that these were the same anchovy pastries one can order as an appetiser at Cutler and Co, Andrew McConnell's other restaurant that I'd been to the night before (yes, it was a very Andrew McConnell intensive week!).


The other drinks we were served were the 2006 Castro Martin Albariño (Rias Baixas), the La Goya Manzanilla Sherry and a glass of Coopers Best Extra Stout. The Albariño was JUST SUPERB, and the stout was a great match for the oysters (as the tasting notes said, 'stout and oysters have shared a long association dating to the 1800's when oysters were not the delicacy we now consider, but a commonplace food served in pubs and taverns').


The class itself was run by Steve Feletti from Moonlight Flat. He touched on flat vs cupped oysters, Pacific vs Sydney Rock, stick vs single seed, the process of affinage and the effect certain factors (eg temperature, sunlight, rainfall, salinity, water flow) can have on the finished product.


As Steve spoke to us and we asked questions, a crack unit of Cumulus Inc staff were assiduously shucking a mountain of oysters for our tasting. We were given ten mystery oysters (to be consumed in a clockwise order, starting from the wedge of lemon). On hand was rye bread with good quality butter and petite radishes to nibble.


As well as Moonlight Flat's Clair de Lune Bouton, Angasi, Moonlight en Surface, Label Rouge and Rusty Wire oysters (details of which can be found here), the tasting included oysters from Moulting Bay and Coffin Bay and triploids from St Helens. We were each given an oyster knife to take home with us: it assisted in dislodging any stubborn oyster muscles and in the shucking at the end of the evening.


Steve Feletti explaining how to shuck oysters. It's all about wriggling and pivoting the knife, firmly but not violently.


We all had a go at the end with the leftover oysters, with varying degrees of success. Rumpole had to take off for a business dinner, but sent me some very sweet text messages thanking me and extolling the virtues of the Petit Clair versus the Angasi.


I was most chuffed when Andrew McConnell remembered me from when a mutual acquaintance introduced us at Cumulus Inc last July. He offered to supervise as I shucked my first oyster, giving me pointers and helping me adjust my grip. What a lovely man.

There's nothing quite like consuming an oyster mere seconds after you yourself have shucked it!

Ladies Who Lunch: Power Breakfast Edition at Cumulus Inc

Cumulus Inc.
45 Flinders Lane, Melbourne (map)
9650 1445


A few weeks ago the Ladies Who Lunch decided to mix things up: instead of our usual catch-up over lunchboxes at Cafe Vue, we made it a Friday morning Power Breakfast.

(Can I just say that Friday morning Power Breakfasts ROCK - we don't have to wear suits on a Friday, we can saunter in the morning sunshine all the way down Flinders Lane back to the legal district afterwards, and the combination of socialising with good friends and eating fabulous dishes puts us in great moods, making the last day of the working week that much easier to swallow.)


The venue of choice was Cumulus Inc, Andrew McConnell's city restaurant that I drooled over when I wrote it up last year. I'd only ever eaten there in the evening, but had heard great things about their breakfast menu and was excited to say the least. We ensconced ourselves in the corner table and commented on how nice the lofty interior looked by daylight.

Miss T had the pink salad of strawberry and watermelon, served with rosewater, mint, pomegranate and yoghurt ($10). Sensational combination. The yoghurt was smeared on the plate under the cubes of watermelon, and Miss T drizzled the rosewater over the top. It tasted fantastic!


Miss B and Miss L both ordered a dish described as smoked salmon, 65/65 egg, sorrel, apple and dill ($17). "Ooooh, 65/65 egg... is that what I think it is: an egg cooked at 65 degrees for 65 minutes?" I asked our waitress, a little breathlessly (if you can't tell from the food porn photo at the top of this post, I have a bit of a thing at the moment for slooooooow cooked eggs).

Out waitress confirmed with a smile that I'd guessed correctly. I didn't end up ordering it (I wasn't in a salmony mood), but Miss B and Miss L lurved it.


As for me, I had the Turkish baked eggs with spiced tomato, dukkah and labne ($16). I must say that the dish overall was slightly on the acidic side (too tomatoey), not sure I'd order it again. The dukkah was fabulous though.


Upon arrival I'd been delighted to see that the $2.50 lemon curd madeleines I'd so enjoyed when I'd had dinner at Cumulus Inc were also on the breakfast menu, so I'd promptly ordered four of them for the four of us to have as a cheeky little breakfast dessert. They arrived just as we were finishing up, hot lemon curd dribbling lazily out of them. Nom nom nom!


Despite the slight misfire with the Turkish eggs, Cumulus Inc is still one of my very favourite restaurants in Melbourne at the moment. I'm taking Dad there for an Oyster Tasting and Shucking Class during the Food & Wine Festival, hopefully I can talk him into dinner there too... :)

Floating on a Cumulus Inc. in Flinders Lane

Cumulus Inc.
45 Flinders Lane, Melbourne (map)
9650 1445


"At the risk of sounding completely outrageous, how about we meet up for a fancy dinner tonight at Andrew McConnell's new place in Flinders Lane, Cumulus Inc? Yes, they're open for dinner - apparently they got their liquor licence last Friday. Meet you there in an hour?"

And thus an impromptu Decadent Thursday for two was born. Best-friend-K had already cased the joint for breakfast - she works a block away - and now we were going to see if the new dinner menu matched up. As I walked in, I couldn't help thinking back to the Disastrous Decadent Tuesday we'd had at Giuseppe Arnaldo & Sons last month. Would this be a similar experience? Are my Decadent Weeknights doomed to fail?

But no - our night at Cumulus Inc last Thursday was a smashing success. The food and drinks were brilliant, the service professional, the restaurant decor and ambiance quietly fabulous. Decadent all over!


B-f-K and I had both had frustrating days, so decided to start with a drink up on the bar stools while waiting for our table. Listed under Delicious Drinks (a separate (and cheaper) list from the cocktail list) was a concoction that sounded right up my alley, albeit slightly summery considering the season: Pimms, Tanqueray gin, fresh mint, lemonade and dry ginger ale ($9.50). Served in a tall glass and looking positively technicolour, it was refreshing and delicious - loved the slice of blood orange.


We started with a half dozen Rusty Wire oysters ($4 each) from Moonlight Flat Oysterage (in Batemans Bay, NSW). The Rusty Wire oysters are a random selection of whatever happen to be the best oysters on the day, and the menu provides a cute little story about how they got their name. To be perfectly honest, this was the one dish that left b-f-K and I a little underwhelmed - the taste of salt water was too strong, so we had to drown the poor things in lemon juice.


Our next dish more than made up for the previous one. The menu has a separate section entitled Charcuterie and from the mouthwatering selection we chose the wagyu bresaola with remoulade and fresh horseradish ($15). Maybe it's the Northern Italian in me, but I just ADORE bresaola and order it whenever I see it. Generally we have it the traditional way (with olive oil, pepper, a few rucola leaves and shaved parmigiano), so I was intrigued to see it with remoulade (which you can see poking out from underneath the meat in the above pic) and fresh horseradish (the little shavings on top). It tasted fantastic - as you might expect, the wagyu bresaola simply fell apart in one's mouth, and the French-style céléri rémoulade was particularly fine. B-f-K had never had bresaola before, but was similarly impressed. Probably my favourite dish of the night.


Next we had a salad of beetroot, shanklish, lentils, raw apple, mint and fromage blanc ($12). I loved the way the raw apple was cut into little matchsticks, just like Ed had had it here for breakfast with smoked salmon and egg. I'm not wild about lentils as a rule (too many bad experiences with bland bland bland dhals during my student days), but puy lentils? Done like this? Yum.


The tuna a la plancha, served with raw and cooked artichoke and caramelised garlic ($28), was also excellent - the triangles of tuna had been seared on one side only, leaving the sashimiesque side pouting pinkly at us. The caramelised garlic added a gorgeous pungent sweetness to the dish.


Did I already mention the top-notch service? One example was when I asked our friendly waitress for advice with the wine list - I wanted a glass of lightish red, but didn't know anything about the 2006 DJ Palacios 'Petalos' Mencia (from Bierzos, Spain, $14). I asked her whether it was lighter or heavier than the Chianti on offer (the 2005 Casa Sola Chianti Classico, $12) and immediately she offered to bring me two glasses with a taste of each... I was impressed (and the Mencia won hands down, by the way - b-f-K agreed an ordered a glass for her too).

We kept commenting how much more ENJOYABLE our evening was to that disaster at Giuseppe Arnaldo & Sons. Cumulus Inc looks like it's been put together with so much love and care (Ed already picked up on details like the finishes on the chairs and bar stools, and Jack mentioned the coat rack and the lighting). For me it was the little touches - the cake fresh out of the oven cooling on the benchtop, the row of cook books stacked neatly on a top shelf in the open plan kitchen, the Aesop Resurrection Aromatique hand wash in the bathrooms (also seen at Auction Rooms and The Press Club), the tables spaced a goodly distance apart...


An extra salad mysteriously arrived at our table with our mains, "compliments of the kitchen" (!!!). I'd been eying off this salad as I'd perused the menu - cracked wheat and freekeh salad with preserved lemon and barberries ($10) - wondering over and over what the hell freekeh was. As a result I got the Alexander Downer "I'm too freak-eh" song from Keating! stuck in my head... :)

Our waitress explained that freekeh was a relatively new grain made from unripe wheat. On its own the freekeh didn't have a particularly strong flavour, but I liked it with the preserved lemon and the little red barberries studding the salad.


Our final dish was the braised wagyu with shallots, field mushrooms and nettle ($29). It's funny... a month ago nettles were not even registering on my foodie radar and now I'm seeing them everywhere - on the menu at Mama Ganoush, on the blogs of Stickfingers (Deep Dish Dreams) and Neil (At My Table). Neil in particular seems especially enamoured of nettles this month.

Seeing them on the menu here at Cumulus Inc b-f-K and I decided to take the opportunity to give them a try. B-f-K was not a fan ("they taste like pureed cos lettuce" was her assessment), but they had a difficult-to-define tangy flavour I rather liked. The wagyu beef had been braised to hearty perfection and the field mushrooms were full of flavour.


Digestivi liqueurs were ordered to follow our meal. B-f-K nursed a glass of All Saints Muscat; I liked the look of the Bertrand Poire Williams ($14); again, our waitress was only too happy upon my inquires to bring forth the bottle for an inspection and a sniff. That eau-de-vie had a kick like an angry mule, but a lovely sweet warm aftertaste.


Although we'd already eaten like royalty I managed to con b-f-K into us ordering a pair of Madeleines ($2.50 each, allow ten minutes as they are made fresh!) - they arrived warm and filled with melty lemon curd. SO GOOD!

Following the success of Circa, the Prince and Three, One, Two, Andrew McConnell is on to another winner here, one that is more accessible and relaxed but still characterised by great food. I'm going there again this week and can't wait!