Menu for Hope: the Melbourne Gastronome prizes

Food blogging royalty and general domestic goddess Pim from the blog Chez Pim has organised the 6th annual Menu for Hope, an annual fundraising campaign hosted by food bloggers around the world to raise money for the UN World Food Programme (WFP).

Food bloggers from all over the world join the campaign by offering an array of food-related items for the Menu for Hope raffle. Anyone – and that means you too – can participate. For every US$10 donated, you earn one virtual ticket to bid on an item of your choice. At the end of the two-week campaign, the tickets are drawn and the results announced on Chez Pim on Monday, January 18.

You can read more about the details of the Menu for Hope initiative here (and cheers to Ed for organising the Asia-Pacific, Australia and New Zealand side of things). Importantly, none of the money is collected by the bloggers: all donations are collected by a third party site (a very good online fundraising company called Firstgiving) that sends the money directly to the WFP. This year the donations will be targeted towards a WFP initiative called Purchase for Progress – read more about it here.

I've been very impressed with the list of prizes that other local food bloggers have come up with, so I called upon some lovely friends of mine to help me organise two prizes for Melbourne Gastronome to host.



The first prize that Melbourne Gastronome is hosting is (drumroll please)...

AP27 Six months supply of Small Batch specialty coffee worth $250+

250g bag of specialty coffee roasted by Small Batch (as seen at Auction Rooms) sent to your address each fortnight for six months. Rotating selection of whatever’s best that week, be it a blend, single origin or Cup of Excellence. Please specify if you prefer filter-oriented or espresso-oriented.


Yep, like the description above says. If you are the lucky winner of Prize AP27, a 250g bag of coffee will sent to your address every fortnight from Small Batch, the coffee roasters whose coffee is sold at Auction Rooms. Each fortnight for six months, Small Batch will send you a bag of whatever the best roasted coffee is for that week: sometimes a blend, sometimes a single origin, sometimes a Cup of Excellence. Because they're lovely that way, please let Small Batch know whether you'd prefer your coffee to be filter-oriented or espresso-oriented.


And the second prize hosted by Melbourne Gastronome is...

AP28 Brunch for four at Auction Rooms plus 12 Sugadeaux cupcakes total value approx $140

Brunch and syphon coffee demonstration for 4 people at Auction Rooms in beautiful downtown North Melbourne PLUS box of 12 Sugadeaux salted caramel cupcakes (or other Sugadeaux flavour of your choice), delivered to you personally at your Auction Rooms brunch by Melbourne Gastronome (schedule permitting!).


Regular readers of Melbourne Gastronome will know how much I love Auction Rooms, and not just because it's owned and run by my friend Andrew. It's my favourite brunch venue in Melbourne: read about my previous visits here and here. If you haven't already been, shame on you!


If you win Prize AP28, you and three of your friends will be treated to an Auction Rooms brunch with bonus syphon coffee demonstration. Thanks, Andy!


BUT THAT'S NOT ALL, THERE'S MORE. As well as receiving brunch for four and a syphon coffee demo, the winner of Prize AP28 also gets a box of 12 Sugadeaux cupcakes! I've taken the liberty of choosing your flavour (my favourite): salted caramel. Look at it and drool, my friends...


Like I said, I've taken the liberty of choosing salted caramel cos it's my favourite, but if you don't like the sound of it you can choose one of Sugadeaux's other flavours instead: browse the full range of flavours on the Sugadeaux site. I can also recommend these other outrageously good flavours that I was lucky enough to sample when the lovely Jess from Sugadeaux invited me along to a recent Sugadeaux cupcake tasting:

Raspberry White Choc and Strawberry Shortcake


Toffee Apple and Caramel Popcorn


Read a full report on the Sugadeaux cupcake tasting night here on Eating Melbourne. Sugadeaux cupcakes are also regularly available for purchase at Amsterdam Street, my favourite local cafe.

So, you get 12 cupcakes as well as brunch for four people! You can elect to either pick up the cupcakes yourself from Sugadeaux's South Yarra location, or have yours truly deliver the cupcakes to you personally at Auction Rooms (schedule permitting... just be sure to give me a bit of notice!).


Finally: I'm afraid I've been a little late off the mark, because the Menu for Hope finishes on 25 December 2009 (Christmas Day). So you've only got a week to get your skates on and donate to enter the Menu for Hope raffle.

How To Donate and Enter the Menu for Hope Raffle

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Choose a bid item or bid items of your choice (AP27 and/or AP28! But you might also like to look at the full list of Australia-Pacific prizes, and the full list of worldwide prizes).

2. Go to the donation site at Firstgiving and make a donation.

3. Please specify which bid item you’d like in the ‘Personal Message’ section in the donation form when confirming your donation. You must write in how many tickets per bid item, and please use the bid item code. Each US$10 (a little over AUD $11) you donate will give you one raffle ticket toward a bid item of your choice. For example, a donation of US$50 can be 2 tickets for AP27 and 3 tickets for AP28: "2xAP27, 3xAP28".

4. Please check the box to allow us to see your email address so that we can contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.

I really hope that lots and lots of you will enter: at $11 a ticket (which is going to a very good cause) there are some really great prizes up for grabs. Thanks and good luck!

ps And a BIG thank you to my gorgeous lovely generous friends Jess and Andy for donating prizes for Melbourne Gastronome to host! xx

Amnesty Fortnight: dinner at Rumi

Rumi
116 Lygon Street, Brunswick East (map)
9388 8255


Okay, this is a quickie, because it's Amnesty Fortnight and I have a dinner date in a few hours. These photos have been sitting in my drafts folder since a while back, but I felt compelled to share them anyway because (a) Rumi seems, somewhat undeservedly, to have dropped off the Melbourne food blogging radar, and (b) it was such a great meal.

The very generous, very delicious Rumi banquet will only set you back $40 per person - outrageously good value in my opinion.


The occasion was the birthday of Beatch, my charming friend from Sydney. We started with the Rumi house cocktail, which was sort of a Cosmopolitan by way of Constantinople: vodka, pomegranate juice and lime.

The opening entrees included green olives pickled with wild fennel, mixed Lebanese and Iranian pickled vegetables, labne with Lebanese flat bread and crudites with almond tarator.


These dishes were accompanied by a plate of lightly fried sigara boregi filled with three kinds of cheese: haloumi, feta and kasseri. Next came a salad of beetroot, shankleesh, Spanish onion and torn mint.


Then it was fried fish kofte with lemon and toum (a Lebanese garlic dipping sauce), and Persian meat balls in tomato and saffron, with labne.

Because Miss A is vegetarian, they also brought us a serve of chickpeas and lentils in tahini yoghurt and parsley. Chickpeas and lentils generally get a big YAWN from me, but I had a taste of these and they really were very nice.


The one vegetable dish that we all LOVED was the fried cauliflower, which came with pine nuts, caramelised onion and currants. BEST CAULIFLOWER EVER.


Also extremely good were the joojeh kebabs of marinated barbecued quail with muhummara, a walnut garlic sauce.


The freekeh salad contained Bulgarian feta, almonds and pomegranate vinaigrette. They also brought out an extra little vegetarian salad for Miss A.


And then there were the mains! The spiced lamb shoulder had been slow roasted on the bone until it was achingly tender, served with sirkanjabin (a sweet mint sauce). Accompanying the lamb was braised greens, a rice pilaf and a cos and herb salad with sweet and sour dressing.


The last time I'd been to Rumi was for lunch two years ago, back when it was located a few doors down the road at the site now occupied by Bar Idda. The new venue is bigger and brighter, but still retains the flowing Arabic script on the walls that was such a feature at the earlier location.


Oh and then we decided to order a SMORGASBORD of delicious Middle Eastern desserts: they included arak-poached apricots and fresh Medjool dates (each stuffed with labne), pistachio halva, Persian fairy floss, Turkish delight, ma'mool (Arabic shortbread filled with dates, rose water and coffee) and an almond milk pudding with sour cherries and rose jam.


We finished our meal off with Lebanese coffee accented with cardamom. Excellent food, value, service, setting and company!

Brunching in St Kilda? Call on Miss Jackson

Miss Jackson
2/19 Grey Street, St Kilda (map)
9534 8415


Last week I met up with the lovely Jess (aka Sugadeaux) for brunch. She suggested Miss Jackson, a cafe on the corner of Grey and Jackson Streets in St Kilda that I'd heard plenty about, but never before visited. I'm so glad we did.


It's housed in a handsome century-old building that was once a bank. Outside are a handful of outside tables on the courtyard deck. The interior consists of a row of small interconnecting rooms with white-painted walls and an elegantly minimalist, relaxed air.


The menu listed two kinds of Bloody Marys ($5/$10): virgin or superstar dj. No prizes for guessing which kind we ordered.


Jess ordered the grilled asparagus with poached eggs, prosciutto and parmesan ($13). I just *loved* the way the prosciutto was snugly wrapped around the asparagus spears!


I wanted something savoury but didn't feel like eggs, so I ordered the corn fritters with bacon, avocado and roasted vine tomatoes ($13). How gorgeous do those vine tomatoes look??! I didn't want to disturb them, but then my hunger got the better of me. A fab brunch dish - the corn in the fritters was nice and juicy, and the relish on the side went with it nicely.


We also enjoyed our coffees (Allpress) and chattering away with Steve the owner. Both Jess and I are keen to go back again soon to sample some of the other brunch menu items (eg the ricotta pancakes with strawberries and lemon curd... the warm citrus salad with yoghurt pannacotta... or maybe the herb scrambled eggs with homemade corn bread). As Jess said, you know you like a place when there are about five things on the menu that equally tempt you!

Amnesty Fortnight: Melbourne Gastronome does (several) izakayas

Mmmmmmm, yukke. Raw ground beef with a seasoning typically containing soy sauce, sugar, salt, sesame oil, spring onion, garlic, sesame seeds, black pepper and bae (pear) juice, topped with a raw egg yolk.

Much like its European counterpart, steak tartare, I find it nigh-impossible to NOT order yukke/yukhoe whenever I see it on the menu in a Japanese/Korean restaurant.

Earlier this year I started out wanting to do an extended post searching for Melbourne's best yukke, but then the post started morphing into a Melbourne Gastronome guide to Melbourne's recent izakaya invasion. I've been saving up these photos for several months, so imagine my dismay when I opened the Epicure a few weeks ago to find this article on that very topic!

Well whatevs, enough is enough. I'm calling another blog Amnesty Fortnight - I'm going to clear these izakayas (and a few other posts in my drafts folder) out of the blog backlog, even if means that the content is less detailed than usual. Yes, that's right ladies and gentlemen, it's an end-of-year special, all posts must go!! Any other bloggers who want to join in the Amnesty Fortnight spirit are warmly encouraged to do so. :)

The following six izakayas are in chronological order of visits. They're also in ascending order of trendiness!

Izakaya Chuji
165 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne (map)
9663 8118


Ah, ol' faithful. Izakaya Chuji is Melbourne's oldest izakaya, open since 1989. It's on Lonsdale Street, much frequented by students, no frills and cheap as chips. $8 yukke.


My second-favourite izakaya dish, unadon (grilled eel on rice with kabayaki sauce), is $16 and pretty generous with the eel. The miso-smeared nasu dengaku comes as a single piece, for $7. Nothing fancy, but generally pretty good.



Izakaya Hachibeh
143-145 Bourke Street, Melbourne (map)
9078 9909


Less impressive is relative newcomer Izakaya Hachibeh, on Bourke Street. The $9 yukke was on the sloppy side and $17 unadon was bland. Can't say I'm in a rush to go back.



J-Pub Shogun
Shop 3, 233 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne (map)
9663 3996


I much prefer the J-Pub Shogun, which is on Lonsdale Street at the end of the Camy laneway. It has Japanese beers on tap, as well as sake and shochu, and specialises in yakitori.

Despite its very informal atmosphere, it has some rather interesting dishes on its dinner menu. I was very taken with the maguro yamakake ($12), for example: tuna sashimi sitting on a soft sticky pillow of Japanese yam.


The negima skewers alternated pieces of chicken thigh with spring onion ($6).


We also loved these whole grilled shishamo ($6). It was hard to find the yukke amongst all the salad leaves.


Tasty buta rib (pork spare rib) for $6. The unagi don was $14.50.



Takumi
32 Bourke Street, Melbourne (map)
9650 7020


I'm cheating a bit by putting Takumi in this list, as it's not really an izakaya - more a restaurant specialising in wagyu on grill-your-own ‘smokeless’ sumibi yakiniku (charcoal grills).

When I went there in July, we selected the Jo-Karubi cut of meat (premium oyster blade, 100g) for $16.50. We also grilled squid and vegetables - I wish though that they'd serve up mixed mushrooms to grill in foil packets, like the ones at Gyu-Kaku, the yakiniku restaurant best-friend-K and I visited in Manhattan!


The menu at Takumi is somewhat more refined. Take for example the delicious scallop sashimi, drizzled with sizzling oil and citrus soy sauce ($12.80).


We were sufficiently intrigued by the description of the ankimo (angler fish liver pate, $8.80) to order it. Liked the paste-like texture. We also yummed up a couple of yaki-onigiri ($4.80 for a serve of two).


At Takumi, the yukke is made with marbled wagyu and a red and green apple sauce. $10.80 and worth every penny.


Oh, and I don't tend to go for Japanese desserts, but we liked the maccha (green tea) ice cream and the goma (black sesame) pudding and ice cream (each dish $4.80).



Ichi Ni
12 The Esplanade, St Kilda (map)
9534 1212


Ichi Ni (translation: "one two") is down in St Kilda, next door to the Espy. Open since March. I like the Japanese tavern fitout, seaside location and pub-like ambiance. Alas, no yukke on the menu.


After the obligatory edamame, we decided to order a selection of yakitori skewers: shitake ($6), unagi ($8), tsukune (minced chicken, $7) and okra ($6). Nice sticky sauce. The shitake were particularly memorable.


We were however unimpressed by the vegetable tempura served with Ichi Ni original tartare ($10). Whilst it may be unfair to expect all tempura to live up to the Tempura Hajime gold standard, the tempura batter was lumpy and the tartare (tinted pink from pickles) didn't quite work in our opinion.


But fear not, all was forgiven with the small sushi and sashimi platter ($30). Sashimi highlights included kingfish, hapuka and swordfish.



Izakaya Den
114 Russell Street, Melbourne (map)
9654 2977


Which brings us to the newest and trendiest of Melbourne's izakayas, Izakaya Den. It's the latest baby of Simon Denton (of Verge fame). The Emerald City doorway next door to Russell Street cafe Postal Hall leads down to the stylish underground bunker where the izakaya is located.


A row of red sneakers on the way down to the bunker. All the staff wear red sneakers.


IF YOU ORDER ONE DISH AT IZAKAYA DEN: I implore you to make it the spicy tuna tataki with garlic soy ($17). It's thick and fresh and sensational. On my second visit to Izakaya Den, we ordered two serves. We were THIS close to ordering a third serve.


I loved the sesame stir fried Japanese mushrooms ($15) almost as much. Another must-order dish.


We were a little underwhelmed however with the steamed eel with rice wrapped in bamboo leaf ($8), which was overly dry and nutty. Give me yum cha sticky rice any day. But we loved the jumbo quail with sansho pepper and garlic chives ($16).


My disappointment at finding this izakaya's menu similarly bereft of yukke was lessened by these adorable Yoshitomo Nara water glasses.


Finally, best-friend-K and I liked the sound of the Fuji apple millefeuille ($10). We were expecting something made with pastry and crème pâtissière, so were surprised to see this precarious creation placed before us: layers of dried apple slices interspersed with bricks of delicious apple gelato.



* * *
Oh, and the other izakaya that I can recommend (not written up here because I already wrote about it in March) is Maedaya Sake & Grill, in Bridge Road Richmond. The grilled asparagus spears wrapped in pork belly are CRAZYTOWN!

Any tips on other notable Melbourne izakayas, or Japanese or Korean restaurants serving superior yukke/yukhoe will be gratefully accepted. :)