RECIPE: Haleem

Haleem, sometimes dubbed the king of curries, is a thick, porridge like curry with variations all over the middle east and south/central Asia. In India, the dish is most closely associated with the Hyderabad state, where it is consumed en masse during Ramadan (because of high-protein, slow-burning nature) and on special occasions, particularly weddings.

Oh, and it's probably one of the best slow-cooked dishes in India. That "king of curry" tag isn't a slick marketing term.

But it didn't have the most glorious of origins. Haleem is said to have originated as a beggar's dish. The beggar would go door to door, accepting whatever grains or meats the house could spare. They would then cook it up with enough spices until it was edible.

I first fell in love with haleem in the same was that many Sydneysiders do-at Faheem's Fast Food in Enmore. Since that first bite, haleem has become one of the few dishes that I actually feel withdrawal symptoms for.

Faheem's remained one of the only places that I could get a hit of it. At least until last week, when I went to an Indian work colleague's place after work on the promise of homemade haleem. And I'm not sure if it was because of the beer consumed beforehand, but his version of haleem gave Faheem's a very serious run for it's money. It was more robustly spiced, cooked for longer. It was, in a word, amazing.

And when I got the recipe off him, I shook with delight, like a twitchy ice fiend that had been given the recipe for the magical powder.




Bondi Junction is not the best place to get authentic Indian ingredients, so I made a few substitutions. The version I ended up with was also utterly fantastic.

Equipment Needed:
- 1 very large pot with lid
- 1 medium sized pot with lid
- 1 saucepan
- 1 stickblender or a food processor with a large capacity.

Ingredients: (for around 12 serves)
- 1 cup channa dal (split chick peas) (I used yellow split peas)
- 1/2 cup masoor dal (red lentils)
- 1/2 cup moong dal (split mung beans) (I used green lentils)
- 1/2 cup mash/urad dal (I used pearl barley)
- 1/4 cup basmati rice
- 1/2 cup rolled barley (or rolled oats)
- 1/2 cup cracked wheat/burghul
- 1/2 kilo of diced beef
- 2 bulbs of garlic
- 2 finger sized pieces of garlic
- 1 tub of ghee
- 6 curry leaves (or around 12 if dried)
- 20 cloves
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 12 cardamom pods
- 2 tablespoons of black peppercorns
- 3 tablespoons of cumin seeds
- 2 tablespoons of salt
- 2 tablespoons of chilli powder
- 4 onions
- Mint leaves to garnish
- Coriander leaves to garnish
- Fried shallots to garnish (you can get these in the Asian section of the supermarket)
- Lemon juice to garnish

Yes, there are a lot of ingredients, but it's not that hard to make. Out of 37 I would rate this as 8 difficult.

Method: (not including the overnight soaking, will take around 8 hours to cook)
- The night before you're making your haleem, soak all of your dals in plenty of water. This will speed up the cooking process on the day.
- Start the day by rinsing all of the lentils (except the red lentils and mash dal/pearl barley), putting them in the larger pot and covering them with around 8 litres of water.
- Cook for 1 hour, stirring occasionally and topping up with water if needed.
- Add the red lentils, mash dal and rice. Top up with water if needed. Add a good pinch of salt. Cook for another hour.
- Skim off any froth that forms on the top.

- As soon as your add the last of the lentils, put the oven at around 200o.
- Wrap the 2 garlic heads individually in foil and put them in the oven.
- On a baking tray covered with foil or baking paper, put the curry leaves, cloves, cinnamon stick, cardamom pods, black peppercorns and cumin seeds. Roast for around 5 minutes until fragrant.
- Using the blender or a spice grinder, grind up the contents of the tray. This is your garam masala mix.
- Slice 2 onions in half moon, and finely grate 1 of the ginger fingers, making sure to get any juice that comes out.
- In the other pot, add 3 big tablespoons of ghee and sweat down 2 sliced onions.
- Once the onions have cooked down a bit (but not picked up any colour) add the beef and stir.
- Add the grated ginger and stir.
- Remove the garlic head from the oven, take a thin slice off the base of the bulb and hopefully you should be able to squeeze out the roasted garlic inside. Add that to the beef and onion pot.
- Add the 2 tablespoons of salt and 2 tablespoons of chilli powder.
- Add around 4 cups of water, cover and set the heat to low. Check occasionally to sir and top up with water if needed, it should resemble a wet curry when finished.

- Back to the lentil pot and add the rolled oats/barley and cracked wheat/burghul. Add more water if needed.
- Stir until it takes on a porridge consistency. Turn off the heat.
- Using the hand mixer or food processor, puree the contents of the pot and leave aside.

- When the beef is cooked and is falling apart, either remove the beef from the pot and shred or use a masher and mash the contents of the pot, breaking up the beef.
- Add the contents of this pot to the large pot filled with lentils.
- Stir well to combine.
- Slice the remaining 2 onions in half moon shape.
- In a saucepan, add 2 big spoons of ghee then fry the onions until crispy. Set the onions aside on some paper towel for serving later, but keep as much of the ghee as possible.
- Add this ghee to the large pot and stir to combine.
- While the haleem is now effectively done, it will benefit by a few more hours cooking.

- When you're ready to eat the haleem, spoon into a bowl and garnish with the onions fried earlier, some fried shallots, a few mint leaves, a few coriander leaves, a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and some finely sliced ginger (from the other piece of ginger we have). You can also add some sliced green chilli if you like, but it should have a nice amount of heat as it is.


And there you have it. Haleem.

It's not a hard recipe, but it is time consuming and requires some forward planning. But if you do make the effort then you will be richly rewarded, for this is a truly breathtaking dish.

RESTAURANT: Phamish

It's in Darlinghurst. It's "westernised" Vietnamese. It's good.

That about covers it.

Further detail:
- The duck and prawn pancakes are amazing. When I go I always wonder how many I could eat in one sitting.
- The beef ragu is a delicious beef stew. Slow-cooked until the meat falls apart. It's a lot more subtle in flavour than the other dishes on the menu, but it's great.
- Soft shell crab is another excellent dish.
- There are some average dishes, like the sesame lamb with just doesn't get the flavour right.
- Crab dumplings are solid. As are the chargrilled pork ball skewers.
- It's not the most authentic Vietnamese around, nor is it the best, but for a cheap bite in Darlinghurst you could do MUCH worse than head to Phamish (around 6-630 or it could be full), put in a large order for duck and prawn pancakes (and a few other things) and have a good meal.


RATING: Will return to [?]

The Great Australian Beer SpecTAPular @ The Local Taphouse, Darlinghurst

While I've gotten into beer in a pretty big way in the past 1-2 years, my knowledge of Australian craft beer is pretty limited. I've also never been to The Local Taphouse before, despite it having a good reputation for things.

So when I heard that The Local Taphouse was holding an event where 22 of Australia's craft brewers would be showing off neverbeforeseen beers, it had to be the perfect storm.

So the way this thing works is that The Local invites a selection of craft brewers to brew either a totally unique beer for the event, or to launch a new beer on the night. The result is some pretty crazy stuff (read the super-refreshing 'Cucumber Sandwich' by Mountain Goat Brewery and the extremely spicy chilli chocolate porter from Hunter Beer Co).

My main worry was that I'd have to choose what beers I wanted to try. How wrong I was. They offer small 60ml tastings, so it actually is possible to try every beer on offer without going broke and dying from overconsumption.

It was a fantastic night and a great way to try out a whole heap of new craft breweries. Can't wait for the next one.

My ratings of all of the beers are as follows (and are heavily subjective):
1. Last Drop - Original Fass Bier. 83
2. Mountain Goat - Cucumber Sandwich. 76
3. Otway - Organic Blueberry Hefeweizen. Sold out when we got there.
4. Kooinda - Raspberry Wit. 54 (I can't stand witbiers)
5. Burleigh Brewing - Fanny Gertrude's Anzac Bickie Beer. 75
6. Wig & Pen - kb (Berliner Weisse). 71
7. Stone & Wood - Red Relief. 75
8. True South - Cherry Bomb (cherry and coconut porter). 85
9. Lobethal/Brew Boys - Quince Pale Ale. 88
10. Doctor's Orders - Zephyr (double white ale). 0 (I HATE white ales and can't rate this)
11. Hunter - Chocolate Chilli Porter. 81
12. Hargreaves/Red Hill - 2 Hills Maibock. 85
13. 4 Pines - Wee Heavy (Scotch Ale). 91
14. Feral - Karma Citra (Black IPA). 87
15. Jamieson - Lemon Myrtle IPA. 86
16. Holgate - The Empress (imperial mocha porter). 91
17. Bridge Road - Big Red Rocket (imperial red ale). 92
18. Murray's Imperious (imperial belgian blond). 88

RECIPE: Boko-Boko

Boko-Boko (sometimes called 'harees' and similar to the Indian dish 'haleem') is, as far as the internet tells me, a dish popular in Eastern Africa. It's made from split wheat and meat and is a sort of porridge.

This probably isn't authentic, but it's brilliant.



- Tablespoon of ghee in a pot on a medium-high heat
- 2 tablespoons of cumin
- 2 grated cloves of garlic
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- A good amount of salt and pepper
- Add a lamb shoulder (trimmed of excessive fat/skin/weird bits/etc)

- Brown the lamb shoulder all over.

- Add 2 cups of bulghur
- Add 6 cups of vegetable stock

- Stir

- Cover it and put it into an oven set at 130c
- Cook until the lamb is falling off the bone
- If it's drying out then add more vegetable stock
- Take it out of the oven, remove the lamb and shred the meat, removing any bone or excess fat
- Remove the cinnamon sticks
- Put the pot on the stove and return the lamb to the pot
- Stir aggressively--preferably with a potato masher--and attempt to smash that pot of stuff into a porridge-like consistency. Or just use a hand blender.

- Garnish with fried shallots, fresh coriander, lemon juice and fried green chilli

RECIPE: Nyama Choma

I guess this is kind of like nyama choma--marinated and grilled meat, Kenyan style. Not really but whatever. I don't care.



3 cloves of garlic, grated
Small piece of ginger (half a thumb) of ginger, grated
1 tablespoon of curry powder
1 teaspoon of ground turmeric
1/2 teaspoon of ground coriander seeds
1/2 teaspoon of paprika
1/2 a teaspoon of ground pepper
Good pinch of salt
Juice of 1 lemon
Good splash of olive oil
Some chopped coriander (one of them. Leaves, roots, stem and all)
1kg of the meat of your choice (I used diced lamb)

Combine, cover and marinate in the fridge for a couple of hours.

If meat is diced, skewer it.

Cook the meat under the grill/on the bbq/over coals/etc/etc. Just get it as hot as it goes.

It's good. Have it with a really cold beer. Pale ale maybe.

RESTAURANT: Red Chilli Szechuan (Harbour St, Chinatown)

Yesterday I wrote about the Dixon Street outlet of Red Chilli Szechuan. Today, I write about the one a couple of minutes walk away on Harbour Street (at the bottom of Goulburn St).

It's newer, the fit-out is nicer, the food is a little more refined (not by much) and it's more expensive.

Oh, and it's fucking amazing.

Really. I was expecting it to be pretty much the same food as the Dixon St restaurant, but in a nicer setting. How wrong was.

Somehow the food is better. It tastes cleaner. The flavours are clearer: It's like every flavour has been set to target an exact area of the mouth.

The beef hotpot was stunning. Fiercely hot, but with a sauce so complex I nearly felt like I could drink it by itself. The sliced pork with leek was also brilliant. Though it was a simple dish, every bite was clear and perfect. Big flavour and big taste.

I can't wait to go back and have more, maybe even some of the seafood they have on the menu.

My only complaint is that the Tsingtaos weren't as cold/glacial as they are on Dixon Street.

RATING: Will constantly return to [?]

RESTAURANT: Red Chilli Szechuan (Dixon St, Chinatown)

The Red Chilli Szechuan restaurant chain has expanded all over Sydney. But before Chatswood, before Burwood, before Glebe, before Chinatown v2 there was Dixon Street.

And it's where I fell in love with Szechuan food. The numbing heat, the sweetness, the sourness

Since that first date I've probably been back to Red Chilli Szechuan a dozen or so times. Other Szechuan places are nice enough, but they just haven't got the same balance that Red Chilli does.

Their mapo tofu is outstanding and is a constant order. As is the century egg with tofu or green chilli. Anything they do involving pork belly is outstanding, but I'm a fan of the pork belly with bamboo shoots. And the stir-fried dishes also deserve a look in, most packing a ridiculous amount of flavour and texture.

And always, always the food is washed down with some of the coldest Tsingtaos around, that always arrive within six seconds of being ordered.

I wouldn't say that this branch of Red Chilli is a fancy looking restaurant, but it's definitely a cool and comfortable space, both very important qualities to have when you're eating food that spicy. Service is quick, efficient and easy to get the attention of, which adds to the comfort of the place. And prices are also extremely reasonable.

The inevitable rectal burn the next day from such consuming copious amounts of fierce chilli may be intense/ungodly, but with the food this great it's totally worth it.


RATING: Will constantly return to [?]

RECIPE: Beans and Rice (But Nice)

I didn't mean for that headline to rhyme and to sound so trite. So please ignore that bad parts of it.


But there's no dollars for nothin' else
I got beans, rice and bread on my shelf
KRS One - Loves Gonna Getcha (Material Love)


(This was after reheating. Fresh, it looks even better IF YOU CAN BELIEVE THAT!)

After a few weekends of excess, I wanted to make something that wasn't over the top and that was relatively simple. And what better way to keep it simple than pretend to be poor like a poor person and eat a poor person's food (not literally; gross) like beans and rice?


The following things

Part 1
- 3 cloves of garlic, peeled and diced
- 1 thumb sized piece of ginger, peeled and diced
- 1 green chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
- 1 brown onion, diced
- Around 2 tablespoons of neutral oil
- 3 dried chillis, deseeded somewhat and chopped finely

Part 2
- 1 teaspoon of paprika (preferably smoked)
- A pinch of cinnamon (optional)
- A pinch of coriander seeds (optional)
- Salt and pepper to taste

Part 3
- 1/2 a red capsicum, roughly chopped
- 1/2 a green capsicum, roughly chopped
- 4 tomatoes, skin removed and roughly chopped

Part 4
- 2 cups of red rice (other types of rice would work, except white)
- 1 tin of black beans, drained and rinsed
- 5 cups of vegetable stock

Part 5
- Salt and pepper to taste

Garnish
- A few things of coriander (you want leaf and stem)


But HOOOOW?

- Add the oil into a large pot on a medium heat.
- Once warm, add the rest of the Part 1 ingredients.
- Stir them for a while until the onions have sweated down a bit.
- Add Part 2's ingredients. A heavy pinch of salt and pepper should suffice at this stage.
- Add Part 3's ingredients and stir for a little while until the capsicums and tomatoes have softened a little.
- Add Part 4's ingredients and stir to combine.
- Lower the stove to the lowest setting and simmer until the rice has cooked. Stir a couple of times and adjust the salt and pepper if needed.
- It tastes great on its own, but if you need to make it handsome then add a sprinkle of finely chopped coriander.

RECIPE: Soft Shell Crab Tempura with Mint Yoghurt

I'd never cooked with soft shell crab before. So when I saw a box of frozen softies at the fish shop I thought it was high type that I killed some vulnerable animals.

ARTICLE: The Overt World of Boring Journalists

Last time it was Food Bloggers (TM) vs Chefs. This time it's Food Bloggers (TM) vs (gasp) Food Writers. And, once again, modern day journalism has missed the point. Completely.

I haven't been able to find the link to the original article in the Daily Telegraph on Saturday, but check out Grab Your Fork for the article and ensuing discussion.

When will your get the idea, modern day journalism? Will it be Wednesday? Will Wednesday be when you get the idea?

Truth be told, everyone has missed the point. Except a few people, but I'm rounding down here for the point of effect.

Here is a dot point summary of the article to save you having to read the Daily Telegraph:
- Food blogging IS EVERYWHERE RECENTLY (even in your child's cupboard!)!
- Just because you like food DOESN'T MEAN YOU SHOULD DO THAT OUT LOUD!
- Food bloggers aren't critical like, well, food critics.
- Gourmet Traveller's Pat Nourse: I like Lemonpi's blog (really only because she is an actual chef so it's a moot point).
- Grab Your Fork's Helen Yee: Blogs are good because blogs are a different source of information and they aren't trying to be hardcore food writers.
- Discussion on PR companies using food bloggers, which is a one-sided comment that food bloggers (TM) are greedy for free food and untalented BUT WE USE THEM ANYWAY.
- Great point from Fooderati's Melissa Leong: "It broadens the spectrum of what we consider news and communication".
- A restaurant critic that receives free food criticising a food blogger that receives free food because FOOD BLOGGERS ARE SHITHOUSE AT WRITING.
- Bunch of semi-jaded, quasi conclusions from said critic that (conveniently) echo the tone and point of the article that probably weren't intended by said critic to be used as the conclusion but the author of the article felt it fitting to put said words there.

And it was only a short article. Amazing how they can cover so many different topics in depth! (<---Sarcasm. They cannot.)


This all goes back to a shitty article I wrote a couple of months ago about how food writing is dying because (paraphrasing) 1) the information landscape has changed and people access news and information differently than before (ie through newspapers) and 2) food writing (from a professional and amateur standpoint) is in a really really big hole and good writing isn't a) happening at the moment and b) possible.

So let's look at the article. Take out the noise and you have the following point:
1. Food bloggers don't have the same traits as food critics. Namely: criticism and ability.

This is entirely the wrong article to be writing. As I discussed in my last piece of words, the argument isn't about the validity of food blogging (TM) at all. It's here. It's here for the foreseeable future, totally regardless of how many free dinners you give it.

I would have been satisfied to just rest on Leong's point that "[Food Blogging TM]... (ed: I just used an ellipses, suck it critics) broadens the spectrum of what we consider news and communication,"--because she totally gets it there--but she weakened her stance (at least in my opinion) with "you certainly look at some people's offerings out there and you think, 'Ooh, why did they think blogging was a good idea?'" That kind of ruined everything (just look at Tunisia!).

They don't care if it's a good idea. It's the internet. Most things are bad ideas on the internet. The internet itself was a good idea. Everything since then has been questionable.

Let me restate my argument from before: food bloggers are not food critics and that is not the purpose of food blogging as a medium. Some may be great writers, some may be terrible, but it's beside the point. Food blogging is about everyone in the world with an internet connection having a change to voice their opinion.

Hell, it's not even limited to food blogging.

I also have a blog where I (attempt to) write comedy. Because I didn't study comedy in any form, do I have no legitimacy, in the same way that a food blogger has no legitimacy to write about food? Do I have any authority to share my opinion of what's funny? When I started doing stand-up, did I suddenly get credibility to discuss comedy? Was it straight away, or was it after a set period of time? Or do only people that have gone to uni to get a journalism degree have the credibility to discuss what is and is not funny?

My point is (too obvious and insulting to your reader's intelligence) that it doesn't matter. Blogging (forget about food for a second, I know it's hard) had nothing to do with having any authority. It's about a stream of words from people. Some of it has meaning and value, most of it doesn't. But the internet isn't about taking in every piece of information; the internet is about sorting through the clusterfuck and finding what YOU, THE INTERNET USER wants to read. Integrity doesn't play a part in the process. If a blog post reviewing a restaurant isn't critical enough, then find one that is sufficiently critical.

If I angled my site as a competitor/peer to food critics and fronted like I was a legitimate "food writer" then, yes, I have every right to be judged against that journalistic standard. But the reality is that the clear majority of food blogging isn't about that. It's about that internet ideal of sharing parts of your life and hoping that someone (somewhere) else finds it interesting, in a sort of new-millennial dance of validation and interaction.

And if everyone could thinking of blogging as JUST THAT, then that would be... well... just swell... and maybe... just maybe... writers for media outlets could write about something that was actually interesting and relevant for a change.

RECIPE: Xin Jiang Lamb Skewers

Uyghur people are basically Chinese muslims. They live in many places, but Xin Jiang is where there is one of the largest populations.

Oh, and they make FUCKING AMAZING LAMB SKEWERS.

There are a couple of Uyghur restaurants in Sydney and it was there where I had my first (of many) taste of the amazingly spiced sticks. I still remember catching a waft of the skewers being made in the kitchen. When the skewers arrived at the table and I realised they were the cause of the smell, a wave of childlike glee overcame me.

They're so delicious. Did I mention that? It's kind of like God send his son Jesus to be sacrificed for taste. And because Jesus is Jesus he TASTES GREAT. Such an amazing mix of cumin, chilli, citrus and other spices.

After my first taste, I knew that I had to learn what was in the spice mix and how to make the skewers. Well... I found out how...



Start with around a kilo of diced lamb. Leave a bit of fat on the lamb, you'll benefit from it at the end.

In a mixing bowl, add 1/4 cup of ground cumin, 1 tablespoon of ground szechuan pepper, 1 tablespoon of dried chilli flakes, 2 tablespoons of soy sauce, 1 teaspoon of salt, a little ground pepper, 1 teaspoon of paprika (preferably smoked paprika), a grated chunk of ginger (a thumb-sized piece), 3 grated garlic cloves, the zest of half a lemon, the juice of 1 lemon, half a cup of olive oil.

Put your lamb in and mix it around; get grabby with your lamb. Cover and marinate for at least 2 hours.

30-45 minutes before you want to cook the skewers, take the lamb out of the over and put it on to the skewers. Then let it rest (covered) and warm up a little until cooking time.

When you're ready to cook, get your oven grill, BBQ grill or hot coals as hot as they go.

Cook your skewers! For extra flavour, when you're cooking, shake a bit of cumin and ground szechuan pepper over the top.

RECIPE: Burnt Flour Pasta with... Stuff

Browning your flour before cooking with it adds some interesting flavour and colour to the final product. I thought I'd give it a go.



Firstly, the flour is browned in a dry pan over a medium heat. Easy as. Just put the flour in and stir until it goes brown. So I did that.

Once that cooled, I sifted it into a mixing bowl and added enough eggs and egg yolks to form a pasta dough.

After a quick resting of the dough, I rolled it out and cut it into rough pappardelle strips (think wider fettuccine).

As I put the pappardelle into some salted, boiling water I also put a chunk of butter into a pan to melt. To that I added pepper, fresh parsley, lemon zest, garlic and some truffle salsa I had lying around.

(The tense of the recipe changes now)

Once the pasta is cooked to al dente (shouldn't take long with fresh pasta) and the butter is frothing, I transfer the pasta to the pan, toss it briefly in the pan then transfer to the serving plate. Over that I shave some parmigiano reggiano.

RECIPE: Mint Julep

These are so good that I'm pretty much blogging drunk at this point after having over a litre of them.

The authenticity of the recipe is heavily debated, but I find this the best.

For 1 mint julep:

Ingredients:
- 60ml of good bourbon (don't skimp for recipes with few ingredients)
- 1 teaspoon of sugar (caster/white)
- Splash of mineral or sparkling water
- 6-8 Mint leaves

How to:
- Put all but 1 of the mint leaves in a cocktail shaker or large glass.
- Add the sugar and gently mix together with a spoon, being careful not to be rough on the mint.
- Add the bourbon and water and mix again, gently.
- Taste it. Every bourbon has different levels of sweetness. Adjust with water, bourbon or sugar if necessary.
- In a lowball (short) glass, fill with ice--ideally, cubes of ice on the bottom and shavings on top.
- Add the remaining mint leaf.
- Pour over the booze mixture.



Mint julep time, son.

Time to enjoy slavery and/or horse racing and/or land ownership and/or white suits.

RECIPE: Red Wine Tea Eggs

I love Chinese tea eggs. With their marbled skin they're great to look at, and with their saltiness they're great to eat.

But why is this technique only used in Chinese cuisine, when eggs are popular worldwide?

What if we put a Mediterranean spin on things and boiled the eggs in a red wine stock, instead of the more common tea broth or soy sauce?

This:



Boiled for two hours in red wine with a few spices and some green tea. Too short a time to impart much flavour, but they look spectacular. I can't wait to find out how they taste after a much longer boil.

An what of the possibilities?

What about quail eggs?

RESTAURANT: El-Phoenecian

Church Street in Parramatta is a street that scares the shit out of me sometimes. And not because it's in Parramatta and I'm 90% guaranteed to get stabbed when I'm there (joke, I love you, Parra). No, Church Street scares me because it's an "eat street". And "eat streets" are evil places, designed by people to rob you by stabbing you with average food; surviving for bizarre reasons like location, decor and the fact that they have brown tables.

But El-Phoenician is alright.

It's your standard Lebanese fare served in fairly comfortable surrounds, with prices marked up a little to accommodate for the comfortable surrounds and the fact that the restaurant is on an "eat street".

What can I say? It was all pretty par for the course. The dips--labne, hummus and babaganoush--were all solid. The salad of lettuce, sun-dried tomato and parmesan was a little odd, though not bad. The grilled meats were as good as other Lebanese grilled meats and other things like felafel and samabouski were the same.

Is it above average Lebanese food? Probably not. Is it below average food? Certainly not. But is it a good place to go when you want solid Lebanese food in comfortable surrounds? Yeah, probably.

For me, it's not really my thing. When I have grilled meat and stacks of garlic dip, I almost feel more comfortable in a slightly shoddy, smokey, busy restaurant. Where everyone has come to devour meat smothered in garlic and hummus and wrapped in Lebanese bread, with maybe a couple of spoonfuls of fatoosh (where was that at El-Phoenician?) to make you feel like you're eating healthy.


RATING: Okay, may go back [?]

RECIPE: Dark Chocolate Jelly

100g of dark chocolate
2 T of cream
1 pinch of caster sugar
Enough agar agar dissolved in water and sugar to set (depends on whether you use powder, sticks, etc) (around 2 C of agar agar water)

Make a ganache by melt the chocolate over a double boiler and add cream and sugar.

Add the agar agar, stir (still over the double boiler) to combine.

Set in the fridge.

It's kind of like a jellied mousse. Though a bit dull on it's own (if nicely dull, like a stable relationship with someone that isn't on ice). I see it being used with other elements, other textures. Moulds would be interesting.

RESTAURANT: Golden Sichuan

A month ago I was walking along Sussex Street, heading to Mamak for a bit of lunch. I'd recommended the place to a dude at work and this was going to be his first time there.

As we got close to Goulburn Street, we noticed a couple of ladies walking down the street, carrying a steaming pot of something. Possibly rice. At each set of lights they would put the pot on the ground and rest their arms. It struck as a bit odd. And when I say "odd", I mean "unhygienic". With no lid on the pot, and people all around, how could it be clean?

Me, I didn't care. I live under no illusions about the conditions in the kitchens of some of my favourite cheap eats. I've probably eating things I shouldn't have, many times. But I was worried for the work dude. Could this pot be headed for Mamak? Was this pot going to be his first impression of Mamak?

Thankfully, the pot didn't go into Mamak. It went into a Chinese restaurant next door to Mamak.

A Chinese restaurant called Golden Sichuan, where I just ate.

See, I'd heard that Golden Sichuan was worth trying, and I had the address, but I didn't know that it was the final resting place of that pot, on that fateful day. I admit it, I hesitated at the door, wondering if I should go in for a bit of pot luck, or to walk past, straight to my normal Szechuan restaurant of choice, Red Chilli in Dixon Street.

But you know what? It was all fine. All pot related crimes are forgiven. We navigated away from the boring dishes and opted for some Szechuan staples like mapo tofu and kungpao chicken. While not as good as Red Chilli, they were still great.

Steamed pork dumplings and spring rolls were a curious choice on our part, but they turned out fine. But it was the Szechuan-pepper-laden dishes that impressed most. The dried tofu in chilli sauce was definitely more-ish.

The beers also weren't as icey as the ones at Red Chilli (which never fail to arrive seconds after ordering), but a cold Tsingtao always hits the spot when chilli oil is present.

Service was also good and the restaurant had a comfortable vibe to it.

While I wouldn't hesitate to come here again, I still prefer Red Chilli Szechuan when I want to eat fire. Not just for the taste, but their menu is a bit more expansive and tempting. And because it's so close by (in fact, two Red Chilli's are close by) I think it's always going to end up on top.

But you could do a lot worse. Because Golden Sichuan is good.


RATING: Okay, may go back [?]

ON FAILURE: Pains of the Giant Peach

(it rhymes with James and the Giant Peach. Isn't that clever?!?!)



It looks like a peach with some sort of sauce on top.

But it isn't. Can you improve on a peach?

Shall we look inside?



The peach has been hollowed out and filled with some shortbread biscuit (mixed with butter to firm it) and a sort of ganache of white chocolate, mint and coconut.

It should have worked, but why didn't it?

Firstly, there were errors in execution:
- The peach wasn't as ripe as I wanted. The flesh was still too firm.
- The ganache wasn't thick enough. So it never set like I wanted it to. It stayed like a sauce. Ideally, the eater should be able to pick up the peach and eat it like a normal piece of fruit, ganache oozing out like peach juice. Efforts to "set" it with agar agar were disastrous (first attempt at using agar agar).

But there was also an error in concept:
- The peach may not be the best choice for fruit. When the stone was removed, a whole in the top opened up. 1) That doesn't look good and 2) The sauce has more chance of running out.
- While the ganache was nice, the integration with the fruit wasn't there. Eating it felt like eating a stuffed peach, not a "new fruit".

Back to the drawing board, but with new knowledge in hand.

ON FAILURE: Frothy crab bisque with fresh crab, tomato and pickle

On the weekend I purchased a milk frother.

Normally intended for the home caffeine freak to aerate their own milk, I thought the cheap device would be helpful in making airy, frothy soups.

And, by God, did it make some airy, frothy soups.



Look at all the goddamn air in that soup! Light as a feather.

But it didn't work.

Why? Too much cream.

It started off well:
- Sweat off some garlic, ginger, celery and shallots.
- Add some chopped tomatoes, cucumber (I wanted freshness), crab meat and vegetable stock (no fish stock on hand).
- Strain the stock to remove the stuff.

Now the base stock tasted good.

Here's where it went wrong:
- Add cream. Entirely too much cream. So much cream as to dilute the flavour and make the soup too rich.

A late saving grace:
- Simmer to bring the flavours together.
- Add a chopped handful of dill.
- Use the milk frother and aerate the fuck out of your soup.
- In a bowl (of, here, a jar) add a little finely diced tomato, crab meat and pickled cucumber. Add your frothy soup on top of that.
- For larger servings (it worked well as an amuse bouche size), serve alongside some buttered bread for dipping.


So what went wrong?

- Too much cream. I need to add around 1/4 of the amount (the true amount of cream I'm too embarrassed to reveal) if I want to make it edible.
- The cucumber was added too early and had no effect. Maybe add it late, shaved over the top?
- The first time I tried it, the tomato, crab and pickle stuff was room temperature. This needs to be warm or it's an odd sensation when eating.


Back to the drawing board, but with new knowledge in tact.

Failure is only failure if nothing is learned.

ARTICLE The Personal Assistant Tipple Prediction Game

It's the craze sweeping the nation (my head): trying to guess what the next drink of choice is going to be for professional women in Sydney.

They're blonde (generalising).
They're personal assistants (generalising).
They're in touch with fashion.
They fucking love sauvignon blanc.

For anyone that has gone to a bar in the city for a drink in the past few years, it's been achingly obvious that ladies love cool sauvignon blanc. It's their drink of choice and it takes the jaws of life (or more booze) to get them to drink any other sort of wine (generalising).

But the sauvignon blanc phase won't last forever. Indeed, it's already starting to feel tired and trendier wine-drinking PA's are starting to open their mind up to alternatives: the first sign that a change is afoot, since the pack has to make the decision before it's cool enough to leap whole-heartedly.

So where to next?

Chardonnay is an obvious alternative. It was the drink of choice before the sav blanc wave crashed and everyone knows that fashion moves in cycles. Going for it is the fact that it is essentially tried and true--it has been loved in the past, so it won't take a huge adjustment to like it again. Then again, it may be too fresh in the mind for the trendsetters to go for it. There are probably still some tribes in western Sydney that swear by the chardy, and it would be a terrible move to stoop to their level, even in ironic terms.

I'm ruling out sparkling wines because they're too much of a special-occasion drink, even if the drink is Riccadonna. It's hard to see sparkling wines become the new norm.

I'm also ruling out all red wines, because red wine = black teeth and mouth and everyone knows that if you're a single, mid-30s PA then you don't want to make yourself look worse. Those young girls are PERT, god damn it.

Riesling has emerged from the shadows to be an odds-on favourite for the race for the drink of ladies' choice. The Summer of Riesling (http://www.summerofriesling.com.au/) is a brilliant promotion that is aiming to put rielsing at the front of everyone's minds. And when I say "everyone", I mean "women", because guys aren't going to drink much riesling, under any circumstances.


Let us pause briefly and look at why the sav blanc is so popular with the ladies at the moment. For this will give us out success criterion.
1. It has a crisp taste and is low in acid, due to most (if not all) popular sav blancs being sold quite young.
2. If you can find any flavours (you'll need to look hard) then you'll get citrus notes, grass, herbs and floral characteristics. In effect, it's like eating a lemon tree.
3. It is a white wine, so it has the illusion of being lighter and also doesn't stain the teeth or mouth.
4. When you drink too much of it and throw up, it looks like you're throwing up water, which allows you to blame "water poisoning" as the cause, not intoxication (which guys don't "dig").

And there we see why riesling has a damn good shot at being the next wine of choice--it nails every one of those categories. Except for flavour. See, riesling has a flavour, it's just not a very good one.

So how about semillon? New South Wales (the Hunter Valley, really) produces some utterly fantastic semillon and everyone loves to root for the home team? Right? Probably not. While our aged semillon is arguably world-class, the ladies won't drink it because 1) it's too expensive and 2) it has too much flavour to "quaff". The young semillons have a chance, but it's a small one. While it's crisp and lightly floral, the flavours are still a little too big compared to other young white wines. Sometimes, it also tastes like you're drinking a tree. And I could be wrong, but semillon can't be crudely abbreviated like "chardy" or "sav blanc". "Semi", just doesn't work.

Lastly, but certainly not least (because it is my choice), we come to a set of twins that are just aching to set the world on fire: pinot grigio and pinot gris. I make a distinction here because in Australia (unlike most other places in the world) we give the grape (pinot gris) two names: pinot grigio for the younger/drier stuff, pinot gris for the older, richer stuff. Here's how I see it going: Initially, no one is going to know that the two varieties are related so everyone is going to go nuts for the pinot grigio because of it's drier, crisp floral taste. But then they'll learn that pinot gris is the same thing and they'll go nuts on that, forcing their palate to enjoy that too (because it would be weird to love one and not the other, and guys don't love weird girls). But it's this confusion over having two varieties (with similar names) coming from the same grape that also has the potential to destroy the pinot g movement before it has even begun. Because the masses hate confusion. And if they get confused about the varieties then they'll avoid the whole damn thing.

So where is it headed? What are your thoughts?

I'm going to keep this game going until society has chosen a clear winner of wine.

I can't wait!