A LONG TIME BETWEEN MEALS

I have been busy these last weeks and haven't revisited this blog.  We have eaten out on our own or with friends a few times recently.

Most notably at an absolute favourite of ours, the House of Chow.   Now I know its not trendy to eat chinese (these days is Japanese or Vietnamese if you must have asian, even Thai is out of favour).  However at House of Chow it is always crowded and busy.  It is one of those restaurant where the owner, Ros, inhabits front of house and greets a great many of her customers like old friends, because they are repeat visitors, like us.   The food is always top shelf, best cuts of meat, consistent preparation methods, and served with exceptional service from the staff.  So for a cuisine that is out of favour this is one restaurant that is not suffering.

But I stray off topic.  Lets talk Barbeque.  Maybe we are invited for a barbeque to a friends house.  They serve the usual Aussie fare, steak or chops, satays and/or sausages.  Sometimes they marinade the meat although I haven't yet worked out why.  The liquid drips off the meat before it hits the heat or it sticks to it and burns to a charcoal coating on the outside.  Never have been in favour of marinades, don't see that they make any difference at all to the meat flavourwise.

A more recent offering has been whole roasts of meat done in the barby.  This is better in that the meat is usually more likely to be edible at least, and joints often have more taste than small cuts.

For over 15 years now we have owned a smoker.  We bought it on a trip to the US and had it shipped home.  It adds fabulous flavour to the meat and cooks it slowly (up to 6 or 7 hours) to mouth watering tenderness.   To get maximum flavour out of smoked meat it is rubbed with a spice mix first and then maybe basted with a marinade type sauce towards the end of the cooking time.  This is the essential of American BBQ, which is a totally different beast to what Aussies eat.  Its tasty, tender and moist.

But boys being boys my hubby tampered with the settings on it and now it cooks too hot.  Typical, and I desperately want to get a replacement (as they are now on the market here) so we can go back to the wonderful roasts that we had when we first acquired it.

AT LAST

After a series of disappointments with food at cafes and restaurants I have at last found somewhere that is getting it right.

This weekend we went to a little town in our state called Strathalbyn to have a quick dinner with friends before we went to a live music performance.  The cafe, Appleseed, has a limited menu that rarely changes but they have perfected those limited dishes and the  food has that wow factor when it goes into your mouth.

I ordered gnocchi with a wine sauce, cheese and spinach and it was perfection.  I have had the red Thai Curry before and it too has the flavours just right. 

On the night the dishes varied around the table from barrumundi to steak and everyone commented on how they enjoyed their meals.

Gold star Appleseed, keep up the good work.

CHRISTMAS FOOD

Merry Christmas all.  We have already had our Christmas Dinner as son number one works in the mining game FIFO.  So on alternate years he has to work Christmas Day, and this year is that year.  So we had it last weekend.

Now I only have myself to blame for this Christmas meal.  The choices were mine and I obviously got it wrong.

First the Turduckin.  Sounds amazing, a turkey, stuffed with a duck, stuffed with a chicken, stuffed with stuffing.  Yeah?  It comes in its own foil tray for cooking, and is wrapped in that heat resistent netting.  So far so good.  We followed the directions completely.  First mistake.

General tip, remove it from tray because you end up with a lump of meat simmering in liquid.  I would wrap it in foil if I ever had another one,  but have an escape hole for the liquid.  It never browned and looked really unappetising when I came to carve.

Now the carving.  Once you take the netting away, what is inside is lumps of meat of unidentifiable poultry (all except the turkey breast, which we did get to at one end) which just falls apart as you try to cut it.  What a disaster.

The only positive, it actually was tender and did taste good.  But would never, ever, ever buy another one.

Then there is the ham.  I have tried everything to find a ham that tastes like ham, or tastes of anything really.  I spent nearly $100 last year on a part leg from a fancy butcher, supposedly made by them - tasteless.  This year I bought a ham from a brand sprouting that it was free range, italian process, etc etc, tasteless.  I'd started to suspect the diet of stall raised pigs was the problem, obviously not.

So next year the decision is made, a pork roast (although pork also is lacking flavour these days) and possibly a chicken or something along those lines.

Our pud was great, home made, as were the veges and all else on the day.

I hope your meal is tastier than ours was and that everyone has a wonderful day

MELBOURNE AND BACK

Its been a few weeks since I blogged.  During that time we went to Melbourne on business and also caught up with our boys and their families while there.  Not much food reporting to do as we self catered on the first night in our apartment and then youngest son served up a delicious barbeque and middle son took us for pizza - all of which was great.  We are learning to be cautious while travelling because tasty edible food is hard to come by on the road and the old local bakery isn't that exciting in most towns.  Having said  that there is a good one in Tailem Bend - you have to deviate off the main highway but a decent coffee and lovely cake is to be had.

Summer is ice cream time in our house and I've just started the first batch for this year.  I have some ripe to nearly overripe nectarines so have just put a mixture in to chill before churning, to make nectarine ice cream (peaches can also be used).  I also have some apricots so will be making roasted apricot ice cream with those.  Favourite is salted caramel, a good quality vanilla ice cream with caramel sauce swirled through it.

It is also nearly Christmas, so the puddings were made yesterday.

Every Monday I meet a group of friends and we lunch at cafes around the Mitcham/Clarence Park area.  The problem is that there is very little choice on the menus, and its very much the same old, same old.  You can get a quiche of some sort (usually roasted veges because they can't think past that), a sandwich or roll up that is always full of stuff you wish wasn't in there or a squashed toasted sandwich.   Fresh bread, a filling like ham or tuna and fresh salad would be lovely, but no we get smashed avocado (not mashed, smashed), chili sauce, aioli, bacon, cheese etc etc, all on one sandwich.  Most cafe owners are just plain lazy.

Thank heavens for a little coffee shop in Stirling that is owned by a couple, one of whom hails from Seattle - much more imaginative choices there, including some delicious american style sandwiches like the hot philly cheese steak sandwich with caramelised onions - YUM.

CUP CAKES

I know I said not until next week but last night we went to the local food market in the city and wandering around before we decided on a coffee.  They had a fabulous array of the most gorgeous cup cakes, with amazing frosting and decorations.  I couldn't resist, had to have one.

Chose a chocolate cup cake with a mountain of frosting and caramel on top, gooey caramel.

Let me say that the frosting was delicious, but the caramel was something out of a tin I think, flavourless.  But worse was to come.  The cake was stale, at least a week old if not more.  The crumb was actually hard. It was as bad as the canoli I once had that was so stale the tube was soft and the custard would have bounced if I'd dropped it.   Why oh why do cafes think this is OK?

We live in a world with enormous choice when you are looking for a meal, simple or complicated.

Why is it then that so many places get it so wrong?  Or maybe I'm just fussy.

On this blog I am going to track the things that I have found both here and overseas and how it just doesn't seem right.

The first one is from Texas.  Having enjoyed a meal my spouse decided he wanted dessert.  His eye was taken by a chocolate concoction with an elaborate chocolate sculpture on top.  Two or three minutes after taking a bite of said chocolate he is looking at me with a look that clearly said HELP!  The chocolate was indigestible, he had a lump in his mouth that wouldn't break down (felt like plasticine to him) and was trying desperately to work out how to be polite and eject it from his mouth.  Why would you make anything out of this stuff and then put it on something that is clearly meant to be eaten?

My most recent food mishap is from a recent trip to another capital city in Australia.  On two different occasions I ordered a chicken salad sandwich for lunch.  Innocent enough, two slices of bread, chicken, lettuce, tomato, cheese and maybe mayo.   Right? Wrong!  Both times it was delivered to me toasted - I didn't want it toasted, no where on the menu did it mention toasting, so why did it get toasted??  Now that wouldn't be so bad I suppose if you take out the lettuce and mayo.  Lettuce when heated turns to slime, and mayo disintegrates into a runny oily mess.  Needless to say neither sandwich got eaten.  They weren't edible.

In the UK my challenge was to find drinkable coffee.  For a cappuccino they use the same shot of coffee as we do here in Australia, then they put it in a cup so big you would usually serve it with soup in it, and add half a bucket of hot milk.  Even a triple shot didn't solve this one.

I leave you with this rant for the day, will add more next week because I'm off interstate again and there are bound to be some more disasters.