What up? At the moment I’m sitting in front of the computer wearing bright pink penguin pajamas, having taken the day off because I’m coughing my lungs up every 5 minutes. It’s a great time to get stuff done though. So far today I have: answered some work emails (and was told off by my boss for being out of bed already), eaten muesli with yoghurt, read through several pages of I Am Maru, faffed about on Facebook, Twittered and went through my usual early morning anxiety. Now, I write.

Last month my good friends May and Cam organised a day out with a bunch of us, starting with mini golf in Narrabeen (I failed spectacularly), then degustation at Restaurant Balzac in Randwick. I’ve always wanted to try out Restaurant Balzac, and our timing was good – they had a special 11 course degustation menu that week to celebrate Bastille Day. It was priced at $110 and $180 with matching wines. I made a big show of umming and aahing about whether to get matching wines or not, but I really didn’t need any encouragement as I’m only one drink away from being an alcoholic.

We started off with my favourite meal in the entire universe – bread and butter. Seriously I can survive on good bread and butter for weeks on end.

First course: rillette of rabbit with pickled gherkins and crispy bread. My rabbit anecdote: I refused to eat rabbit meat when I was 9 because I had pet rabbits. Whenever my dad bought rabbit satays, he would tell me that they’re chicken. It didn’t help me get over the rabbit thing, but it did make me distrust him AND food for a while. It felt a bit weird eating the rillette as a result, but my dysfunctional childhood had no impact on the taste – it was good. The gherkins did their job of making everything just that little bit better.

Second course: truffle and artichoke veloute. Creamy, rich and truffle-y – like getting in a bath with Cleopatra, minus poisonous snakes.

Third course: Endive Tart Fine with Fresh Goat Curd, served with 2008 Shaky Bridge ‘Pioneer’ Gewurztraminer. The wine was the first of six glasses, which would prove to be my undoing. I enjoyed this immensely, but not quite enough for me to think of an analogy.

My unfinished wines from the third and fourth courses. I’m a goddamn lightweight but the last time I had too much white wine, I ended up in a strip club in Petersham so I had a reason to be careful around them. That second wine is a French 2007 Domaine Matassa ‘Nouge’ Muscat/Maccabeu/Viognier. Yes, I  just copied and pasted that from their online menu. It’s a very minerally wine that goes well with the scallop in the fourth course.

Fourth course: roast scallop with celeriac and caviar. I took this photo and was like, duh, the main component of the dish is the scallop – it should be turned the other way round you dumbarse. So here’s a closeup of the scallop to make me feel better:

This was pretty fucking amazing. The scallop was perfectly cooked and sweet, and the celeriac puree was out of this world tasty.

Fifth course: galantine of pheasant and guinea fowl with a mushroom salad. I liked the mushroom salad more than the galantine. The dish was slightly ruined for the SO because they forgot to take off the glad wrap casing around his slice of galantine. Our sommelier assured us that someone will be shot for it. The SO still complains about it now, I just pretend I can’t hear him. This was served with 2007 Passetoutgrain, Domaine Taupenot – Merme from Burgundy.

Sixth course: cassoulet of lamb shoulder with haricot beans and fried lamb sweetbreads, topped with breadcrumbs. I loved the medley of textures it, but the SO and May thought it was a bit bland. The wine for this one is 2005 Medoc, Domaine Lapalu ‘La Patache’ from Bordeaux, France. Started to get shitfaced around this time and stopped paying attention to the wine.

This was the highlight for almost everyone at the table. Seventh course: deboned oxtail ‘a la Bourguignonne’ topped with a slice of bone marrow, and veal tongue. The meat was melt in your mouth tender though I have to say I still feel a bit wrong when I eat veal. It’s like getting a Swedish massage by angels – strong and delicate all at the same time with a slight fear of God. Served with 2008 Poonawatta ‘The Four Corners’ Shiraz which the SO liked almost as much as he likes me.

Eighth course, but who’s counting? A cheese plate consisting of a truffled brie (brie infused with truffles) and roquefort. Sry2say that I’m a cheese philistine who can’t appreciate blue cheese, which the SO ate the most of. I absolutely loved the brie though.

Ninth course: a palate cleanser/pre dessert that I liked better than the dessert itself: apple jelly with Calvados sabayon.

Tenth course: ‘Iles Flotante’ – May said this means “floating island”. A little island of meringue in a bed of light vanilla brulee sauce, topped with crunchy praline. It’s quite light, which was a blessing because I was down to the last notch on my belt.

Just when I thought the food was never going to stop coming, we got to the eleventh course of petit fours and tea/coffee. We had vanilla macarons, truffles and madeleines. It was nice enough, but at this point I really just want to pass out and sleep for about two weeks. Not just because of the rich food, but because the degustation took five hours from start to finish. Not the restaurant’s fault obviously… an 11 course degustation was always going to be an epic affair.

Restaurant Balzac
141 Belmore Rd
Randwick NSW 2031
(02) 9399 9660

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I started a new job three months ago and it took over pretty much my entire life. I’ve avoided talking about it because I’m superstitious enough to believe that if I talk about my new job before my probation period is over, I’d get fired the next day for whatever reason. I’ve just passed my probation period so I get to say that I kind of like it. Well, it has its moments. Some of those moments even involve me not being stressed as fuck.

The downside of this craziness is that my digital camera has shitloads of photos just sitting there, congealing like yesterday’s oatmeal. I’ll get around to them eventually, but let’s start with my most recent adventure.

A few weeks ago the SO and I took off to Melbourne for a weekend away. It was a much needed break away from everything shitty in Sydney (including the weather, what the fuck Sydney?). It was a very indulgent weekend and I ate too much. I’m just going to jump straight into the food, because I can’t really say too much about the weekend without it being gross TMI. I’ll make do with lots of nudging and winking.

My visit to Melbourne is never complete without a trip to Koko Black. We had the Belgian Spoil, a selection of deliciousness that includes ice cream, chocolate mousse, two filled chocolates, shortbread and a cakey thing.

I also had the hot chocolate. You know what guys, I don’t know. I was slightly disappointed. The hot chocolate was way too sweet, the cake was dry and I didn’t like the chocolates they gave us (everything else was delicious). Maybe I’m just getting older and the taste buds can’t handle sweet things anymore. It’s only a matter of time before I hunch over, age a hundred years overnight and start wearing leopard print capri pants. Not gonna lie, I’m looking forward to my concession bus fares.

For dinner we went to Campari House on Hardware Lane. I randomly found the place through Twitter and thought that I’ll live dangerously and just try it out. Did my gamble pay off? Well.

Entree #1 – eggplant croquette with green chilli and mint relish. The croquettes weren’t hot enough (temperature wise) to taste like it was freshly fried. That’s a minor quibble though, can’t complain about the flavours – it was v delicious.

Entree #2 – cinnamon smoked duck breast with cauliflower puree, “baby onion rings” and curry vinaigrette. I’m the sort who gets terribly grossed out by undercooked poultry and this is the first rare duck I’ve tried that I liked. That said, I couldn’t taste the cinnamon.

The SO’s main – blue eye fillet with fennel and lemon puree, shaved potatoes, herb and citrus salad. Flavours worked well, fennel tasted gorgeous and the salad was zingy and zesty and made sweet music with the other bits on the plate. You’d think that after all of that the dish will be perfect, but no. Fish was overcooked and dry. Not the sort of overcooked that’s “oh it’s just a bit crispy on the end bits”. Just overcooked. Not impressed, guys.

My main, thankfully, was awesome. Spinach and ricotta gnocchi with pickled zucchini, roasted pepper puree and porcini cream. Pickled zucchini is genius and I want more of it in my life.

The star of the meal was surprisingly the side dish – broccolini with gorgonzola sauce. I want to marry this dish then eat it, like newlywed praying mantis..es. Mantii?

Dessert was cinnamon creme brulee with berry semifreddo, orange crostoli and chambord jelly. Didn’t like the crostoli, which had the texture of cold Maccas fries. Loved the brulee (had all the cinnamon flavour the duck didn’t) and jelly. The end.

I also wanted to get shitfaced and had several cocktails. This one came with edible flower:

The menu promised edible flowers (plural), which – while I was drunk – seemed like a really big deal. When I sobered up I realised that I was being a giant wanker and punched myself in the face. Or I would have, but I didn’t want to have to explain the black eye. I’m in enough trouble already because I kept joking to people that my SO keeps my passport so I have to stay home and wash the dishes for him (disclaimer: I have my own passport. The SO’s a very nice man who’s capable of washing his own dishes).

In summary: Food was kind of overpriced but tasted good except for the fish. Did I mention it was overcooked yet?

The next morning we went out, got lost and eventually ended up in Brunswick St., where we tried out Madame Sousou for the first time. I had the baked eggs with creamed spinach and gruyere which is basically made up of butter, cream and cheese – breakfast of champions. I figured that because the cafe made a big deal about being French and chic and everything, the baked egg dish will be more Audrey Tautou than Jean Reno in size.

Again, I was wrong. It was as big as your mom.

The SO had the big breakfast but felt sick halfway through his breakfast from all the butter. I finished my baked eggs. Obviously I am made of stronger stuff. Let’s not worry about the self loathing afterwards.

Here is a shout out to a couple more places in Melbourne I got to try out and loved:

Creperie Le Triskel on Hardware Lane. It was so good that I don’t think I can ever try another crepe place in Australia without being disappointed. I had a crepe with bechamel sauce, mushrooms and spinach. No photos because I was seated inside and felt kind of self conscious.

Tony Starr’s Kitten Club on Little Collins St. The last time I went here a couple years back it smelled like pee due to a malfunctioning bathroom. Now it just smells like a girls’ night out – a heady mixture of sweet alcohol and celebrity perfume. Despite all of that, the staff are absolutely lovely, the atmosphere great and I love the cocktail menu. Food wise, I’ve only been to the cocktail lounge so I can’t say much about the restaurant food, but SO reports that their tapas are brilliant.

I was lucky enough to score an invite to Chocolatesuze’s birthday party/blogger’s meetup a while back and meant to write something about it. Except my camera ran out of batteries after the first photo. Fuck. My. Life. Regardless, it was brill seeing familiar faces and some new ones. Hi guys, hope I didn’t freak you out too much. On that note… I haven’t had much time to read blogs lately but I’ve been very much enjoying The Creamy Middles when I do read it. Not just because Rachel has a mind blowingly awesome coat that I will covet forevermore.  As a personal shout out, I want to thank Rita, Grace and Cathy for putting up with my nonsense that evening as I got progressively tipsy.

Now I’m off to sleep and gird my loins for tomorrow, whatever that means.

I didn’t take any photos of the place because I was a bit self conscious about taking pictures (I think my mistake was asking if I can take photos first, the dude was like “for personal use?” and I’m like “yeahhhhhhhhh” then I was a bit worried I’d look like a price comparison undercover person or something but uh this counts as personal use right?), but the restaurant is awesome. Not gonna lie, it was a bit cramped and noisy, but service was friendly and well, they’re all hot. There’s a rockabilly vibe in the place with almost everyone rocking 50s hair styles and clothing.

You know what though, I came home and looked at my collection of photos and was like, why did I even bother taking photos if it looks like I took photos of everything with my eyes closed? I’m disgusted guys, disgusted. It’s the opposite of my sentiments on actually eating there, which I’ll get to in the next paragraph.

Man I can’t ever think of a clever way to start a paragraph, so let’s get right to what we had:

Eggplant en escabeche and complimentary bread. I forgot to turn on my macro setting for this shot. What the fuck, indeed. Anyway, I can always get behind a place that gives you a crapload of delicious fluffy bread and olive oil free of charge. Wikipedia, the font of all knowledge says that an “escabeche” is a thing what’s marinated in something acidic. The eggplant was nice and slippery with a strong hint (is that an oxymoron?) of fennel.

OYSTERS. Not much to say there except OYSTERS GODDAMN. They’re $3.50 each. At first I was trying to appear demure or some shit by saying I only want one, but then everyone got two and I was like fuck it I want some goddamn oysters. So I got two, and it was double the deliciousness. The SO only had one because he is very secure about his testosterone levels.

Spiced pumpkin and feta empanadas with yoghurt sauce. It was crispy and not at all greasy. I didn’t think the yoghurt sauce was really necessary but was happily proven wrong when I slathered my bite of empanada with it.

Oh god this is just tragic. I stared at this picture in Photoshop for ages thinking, I’m never gonna salvage this piece of crap. Then I was struck with a brilliant idea – I’ll just resize it really really small and it won’t be too obvious that the picture’s shit. Obviously, it didn’t work. These are the deep fried spiced calamari with aioli. It was slightly too salty for me, but the bits of calamari are perfectly tender. Just one thing though… they gave us enough aioli for a bucket of fried calamari. I would love a bucket of it, just FYI guys.

These are called fish fingers, but they’re not the bright orange processed stuff you get in a box. From the site: “sashimi Kingfish on garlic toast with cuttlefish ceviche and mojama“. It’s a bit salty, a bit sour and a bit sweet from the onions. I’m a huge fan of this.

Steamed pork belly with warm salad of onion and shiitake mushroom. See, my experience with pork belly usually involves the crispy crackling or highly flavoured braise, so this was something very different for me. The steaming produces very silky, melt in your mouth delicate thin slices of pork. Daniel left the rind on his plate. If I wasn’t so concerned about looking like a rude arsehole I would have shamelessly asked if I can have it. If I’m trying to describe the dish by picking a passage from the well worn pages of purple prose analogies, I would liken it to your lover’s breath against your cheek as you sip a glass of wine, discussing philosophy in a buttercup-filled meadow with white doves flying overhead, while the advancing army of soul sucking robots move throu

Just as I was lulled into a trance-like bliss by the wispy carress that was the pork belly, the gutsy chorizo with sofrito paste came along and sucker punched me in the mouth. Pow, motherfucker!

I was a bit confused as to why the salad came later and not at the beginning of the meal, but it was not my place to ask such things – just to eat with relish. In hindsight it was a great way to end the savoury dishes and cleanse the palate for dessert. This was beetroot, labna, witlof and orange salad. I’ve always been kind of ehhhh when it comes to beetroot, but it was gorgeous here with the sweet oranges and tangy labna. I still can’t do witlof though, sorry. Evil little things. I ate them anyway because I’m polite.

The dude who took orders from our table said I can have dessert if I finish all my vegetables. I even ate the fucking witlof so this amazing plate was well deserved. This is the “banana split”, but like the fish fingers the name doesn’t really describe what it actually is. The plate consists of a cream flan, dulce de leche ice cream (WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE), ginger biscuit (assume this is the thing on top of the flan?) and a fluffy banana puree thing. I’d eat another witlof leaf for this.

This was a dessert on their specials board so I don’t actually know what they call this. But it has a pastry thing with some sort of vanilla creamy custardy thing in it, a quince… thing and a scoop of very chocolatey ice cream. I liked the vanilla thing enormously though SO found it a little bland.

This meal (we shared three desserts between the four of us), plus beers and bottle of sparkling water came to about $60 per person. I was completely stuffed at the end of the meal and felt like I had to be rolled out of the restaurant.

Bodega Tapas Bar
216 Commonwealth St
Surry Hills NSW 2010
(02) 9212 7766

My good friends May and Cam hosted an Arty Party on Saturday as a belated housewarming. Our gorgeous hosts supplied the canvasses, oil and acrylic paints (some salvaged from Cam’s bludging fine arts days in uni) and paintbrushes while everyone else brought with them alcohol and imagination. Everyone really got into it – the room was silent as creative juices churned from brain to paper, broken only by the occasional “Who’s got the Burnt Umber?”

Of course, creativity has to be well-fed. May’s mum generously contributed baked goods for us starving artists:

Best apple pie ever, fat with chunks of spiced apple and sultanas. May said that her mum only learned how to bake recently. “Unpossible!” I said through a giant mouthful pie, clumsily spraying bits of buttery flaky crust everywhere.

May’s mum also made a zingy, creamy lemon tart. May served it with some lemon sorbet.

I’m a bit hesitant about putting everyone’s art up because I forgot to ask if it’s OK, but here’s my finished masterpiece:

Here’s my incentive to finish the painting on the day:

Orange cupcake, baked by May’s mum and lovingly decorated by May and Cam. Finish a painting, get a cupcake. Shakespeare got to get paid, son.

I don’t know about you, but a day of painting and eating baked treats always makes me hungry for savoury carbs. Cel, one of the stragglers left at Cam & May’s suggested that we eat at Pastizzi Cafe. Pastizzi Cafe is another one of those Newtown institutions that’s been there for years and years. It’s a Maltese cafe that specialises in, uh, pastizzis – fat little pastry pockets traditionally filled with ricotta or peas.

Pastizzi Cafe is usually packed – but we lucked out (on a Saturday night, no less) as they’ve just opened a brand new extension at the back of the restaurant. You get to it via a treacherous alleyway on the side of the building, but the rewards are worth the journey (and slightly distressing smell of the back room).

Our very friendly waiter brought out a selection of 12 pastizzis as a starter for six of us. From memory, the pastizzis we had were ricotta, salmon and dill, curried beef, spinach and feta, seafood and… a random meat one.

These were served with a rich tomato sauce on the side. I had one of the meat ones and the salmon and dill. They were perfect – the filling was nice and moist with a perfectly crunchy outer pastry. Look I’m not gonna mince words here – they were greasy, but it’s the delicious kind of greasy. They’re also v filling so I wouldn’t recommend getting more than one as a starter if you’re getting pasta as your main. This is why:

Good god it’s the size of a schoolboy’s head. I’m trying to stay classy here so I won’t make any ball jokes. I had the spaghetti with beef/pork meatballs and only managed two thirds of it, and even then I really had wayyy too much. It’s one of those situations, you know, when the food is so good that your mouth wants more even though your stomach is at the point of bursting.

My SO had the only non-pasta dish at the table because he’s a rebel like that. This was lamb cutlets in lemon and garlic sauce. The lamb cutlets were slightly overcooked for his liking, but the sauce was delicious and again, the serving was ridiculously big.

This is the only other picture of a main dish I took that night, purely because I had to get stuck into the task of eating my food. I think this was the penne margherita – it has a vodka-based pink sauce. It was a bit sweet for me – I think I prefer to just have the pink sauce and a thing (pint glass?) of vodka on the side.

And because I’m a glutton for punishment, I let Cam talk me into getting a chocolate pastizzi for dessert (I split it with May so the calories don’t count). I wasn’t actually a massive fan of it – the chocolate and ricotta filling made the pastry twice as greasy and a bit soggy. My SO ordered the vanilla panna cotta with raspberry sauce, which I absolutely loved.

I’m not an expert on panna cotta or anything so I don’t know if it’s got the right amount of wobble or whatever, but what I do know is that I ended up stealing a third of it from my SO. He’s going to read that and say, “yeah but you always steal a third of my food ANYWAY” and I’ll be all like, “I HATE YOU can I have some of whatever it is you’re eating?”

Pastizzi Cafe
523 King St., Newtown
(02) 9519 1063

At this point I’m sure a bunch of you are all like “Wtf is this entry not finished yet?” but I swear it’s worth your time!

After dinner, we decided to go to The Moose for cocktails. We’ve gone past it before and thought it looked like a pretty cool place but we’ve never actually ducked in until tonight. I’m so glad we did.

Don’t let my shit photography deter you from coming here! The Moose is a laid back, quiet cafe that transforms into a cocktail/tapas place at night. It’s hip without being hipster and swanky without being wanky. It’s definitely not a place to be seen or to pick up – it’s a great place to chill out and enjoy the company of friends.

The person who took our orders is a lovely Canadian lady who I had a nice chat with about Canadian booze. She said that they make great Long Island iced teas because it’s the bartender’s favourite drink. Fuck yeah! The bartender is an Irish dude who took the opportunity of the lull in orders to take photos of his cocktails as he made them – we love you man.

The cocktails were, by the way, delicious. Also, as if I can’t love them any more, they had to make moose-related puns in their cocktail list – be still my beating heart! I had the espresso martini and “saketini”. I’d tell you what was in them but I was kind of tanked already and they don’t have a website. That’s OK though – I’ll definitely come back for more. For research purposes, of course.

The Moose
530 King St., Newtown
(02) 9557 0072

Efendy is placed away from the main Darling St strip (it’s more on the border between Balmain and Rozelle), so the surroundings are a bit more quiet, but the place was busy when we arrived. There is a nice courtyard area at the front but the majority voted for sitting inside because it was too hot.

My SO and I both ordered tea – he had the apple tea. It comes with a stick of cinnamon. I absolutely loved it and secretly wished I ordered it instead. It was pretty sweet, but the cinnamon helps to mellow out the sweetness so that it’s not too sickly. I had Turkish tea, which tasted like black tea. Idk if it’s supposed to just be black tea, but it comes in a cool glass so whatever.

Oh man. Guys you gotta get your arses down here for the breakfast, it was pretty damn amazing. These were our choices:

My SO and Rachel ordered the Kiymali – “village style” minced lamb stew with eggs and tomatoes. This was absolutely delicious. I’m a huge fan of lamb, and the combination of spices and eggs made for a rich, satisfying breakfast. The serving plate they have is… interesting. It’s like a huge dinner plate with a bowl in the middle. When you first get it you’re like uh, that’s a pretty small serving innit, then you dig your fork in and the bowl goes on FOREVER. What I’m saying is, don’t worry about your serving looking small cos it isn’t.

Cam and Andrew ordered, uh, this. The menu on the Efendy website is a bit out of date so it doesn’t have a couple of the new dishes on it (and prices – everything is probably a couple of dollars more expensive that is stated on the old website menu), but this was a dish of poached eggs on top of buttered Turkish bread with haloumi, asparagus and tomato.

May and Pimento ordered the Kallavi or big breakfast – two fried eggs with grilled sucuk, merguez sausages, mushrooms and pastirma. Pimento opted for no tomatoes because he’s weird.

This was my pick, the Menemen – spiced scrambled eggs with banana peppers and tomatoes, plus a side of haloumi for an extra $6. This was delicious. It’s pretty much just eggs and vegetables but it’s very more-ish. It’s slightly spicy, the type of heat that just tickles the tastebuds so that everything tastes more intense. I thought that $6 for a side of haloumi was pretty expensive but they do give you generous slices of it and they’re fried perfectly.

Check out the giant platter of buttered Turkish bread in the middle of the table. I love this place and will be back to try out their dinner menu one day.

Because it was just after noon when we finished eating, the girls opted for alcohol for their second round of drinks. A birthday is not complete without some, even though the birthday boy didn’t have any.

Rachel and I got a delicious cocktail called Narosa – sparkling wine, pomegranate liqueur and bits of pomegranate. Not only are the pomegranate seeds delicious but they also provide the sort of entertainment devised by people with way too much time (and sparkling wine) on their hands, as we tried to get the seeds to float via the powers of bubbles in the wine. May ordered a Bloody Ayshe – vodka, tomato juice, Turkish tomato ezme (idk) and “spices”. It came with a pickled chilli on the rim. I didn’t try any of it cos I hate tomato juice, but it got a thumbs up from May.

Then we went back to my place where I surprised Pimento with a chilli chocolate orange cake (recipe from here). I need to get myself to a cake decorating class or some shit because this looks like ass, but I can guarantee that this recipe is tops – it was very fudgey and rich and the chilli in it packs just the slightest hint of heat that pairs very well with the chocolate. My mistake was to leave it in the fridge until we got home. Ideally you’d want it to be out of the fridge for an hour or so before eating, as it’s a bit dry when it’s cold.

Among a couple other things, I got Pimento this as a gag gift:

It’s gluten free, low sodium vegetarian bacon salt. It’s actually as disgusting as it sounds. It doesn’t taste like any sort of bacon I know. It tastes more like dried, ground up cocktail weiners. Blerrrghhh. I don’t recommend getting it for people you like.

Efendy
79 Elliott St. (corner of Darling St.), Balmain
(02) 9810 5466

ETA: I just realised I’m using my old watermark with a www in front of the URL. FML I’m not redoing the pictures

ETA II: Heads up for food bloggers: head over to Simon’s blog to win a chance to be a guest at Efendy’s food blogger’s event! There’s going to be free samples of authentic (and I’m sure) v. tasty Turkish food.