Lunch box

After being totally inspired by this smutty food blogger, I decided to start taking my lunches to work. mr k was so impressed that he promptly swiped mine and I had to make another one. This is from the man who in the 12 years I have know him has NEVER taken a packed lunch. I should feel flattered. My lunch consisted of sprouts, shredded carrot and beetroot, capsicum, smoked chicken, cherry tomatoes & lime wedges. Morning tea consisted of blue berries and strawberries. Good blueberries are the best. These were tight and sweet. Even though they are so expensive at the moment, I have been buying packets of them and they have been gooood. But the last packet not so great, a bit soft, floury. Tonight at the shops I noted the price had risen by two dollars so they are off the lunch menu for now. The salad dressing is my own creation. Lime juice, macadamia chilli oil, garlic, dijon mustard and sea salt...yummo.

My favourite building

We went for a magical mystery architectural tour today with our friends s & b. I saw this building as we zoomed past a couple of weeks ago. To my joy, today it was on the tour. It is my new favourite building. Isn't it lovely? This is on Wellington St. It used to be the Red Cross building. It is now something to do with Child Services judging by the god-awful sign that has been plastered on the front. When you get up close to the concrete you can see the impressions of the wood and the nails. The stainless steel light guard in the second photo is such beautiful design. Coming to work in a building like this would be a pleasure.

I have these photos on my screen saver at work and if teenage boys keep asking for more, I thought I might post them here.
The building is Sentosa Villas in Seminyak in Bali. I think it was one of the founders/owners of Quicksilver who is behind this development and who has a family home here. What is really lovely about this building is that the perforated concrete wall really works. In the middle of the day, we had lunch in the restaurant. It was a hot, muggy, Bali day and we were very comfortable. There is no air conditioning (or at least none that we were aware of) as it is all open and it was divine.
The building was all the more spectacular because it is hidden up a back road. You come up around a corner and are literally blown away by this magnificent structure. I want one!

By the way, still trying to learn this whole blog thing, if anyone actually reads this thing and knows of any links that can tell me how to order photos the way I want them to etc etc would love it if you can leave me a comment...

Inheritance

Yep, I did it, I rang a building company and I organised them to come and look at the house. This is big. One day I might actually have a kitchen that is younger than me (I'm 35).

We went to my parents place for dinner. My mum is one of those people who can pluck things out of the garden and set a table that looks beautifully homemade but also like something out of a magazine. It seems to exude love. She put together a three course meal for my sister's birthday recently (plus cheese souffles for the two vegetarians at the table).
My mum is not an expressive person, you are always going to be the first to tell her you love her, she forgets things like that. But you look at her table, you eat her food and you feel loved.
I love the fact that not all her meals are fab. She has lots of misses (plus plenty of hits). She is adventurous. She used to make my siblings and my eyes roll when she said she would "taste things up" however she has given us all a real gift. Both my brother, sister and I love our wine and food. We appreciate it. We love a good picnic. We all like to try new things. This trait is inherited from my mum. Today she flew off to Bali with my dad. They have never been before and they are going to a cooking school over there. It is her 60th birthday present and she is so excited. Happy Birthday Mum!

Bali Beauties

Living in the most remote city in the world has its advantages. Bali is actually closer than any other Australian major city to Perth and is relatively cheap to travel to. Bali is beautiful. Balinese people are lovely and many Perthites have long standing close relationships with families in Bali going on two, three generations. Many people equate Bali with cheap beer and cheap resort accommodation but my experiences have been that it is a very artistic culture with an amazing food history.

We travelled to Bali last August and enjoyed a range of meals from the latest groovy beachside bars a la Ku De Ta to chowing down at the buffet at our hotel in Ubud to cooking classes with the world's most "smiley" teacher to a sublime $4 fried fish basket in East Bali. Food in Bali is seriously good.
We did a couple of cooking classes and really enjoyed ourselves. I love the holistic notion that is such a part of the Balinese approach to food. Shallots, gingers and chillies are used for cooking, for healing (for headaches) for curing screaming babies...some great stories were told to us over a wooden table in a outside pavilion in Ubud. Sweating plastic jugs filled with a refreshing drink made from blossoms that were steeped in water that turned from a deep black into a sweet blushing pink when sugar was added were constantly replenished. Our instructor talked for 2 1/2 hours taking us through every ingredient we were to use and explained not only how to grow it, but how to harvest it, how to store it, how to cook with it and how to use it for a number of household remedies. It was a great lesson on how far we can get away from realising that nature has provided everything we need. I am a bit of an old hippy at heart but mr k is definitely not. Even so, he really enjoyed our cooking day. We both have plans to live in Bali one day (and one day soon!)
Food is a fundamental aspect of life and nourishment and it is something I remind myself of when I am fiddling with silly stuff in life.
There is every kind of cuisine available in Bali but we find the best food is often Balinese or Indonesian and fish dishes are usually always fantastic. The fish we had was always very sweet. We tried all the latest and greatest restaurants and we loved Sarong
Whole fish with three different sauces was an absolute winner. We also had an amazing meal at Moziac in Ubud. Our best meal was in a tiny seaside village for $4 of a fried seafood basket..it didn't look like much but ohhhhhhhh....fresh seafood dipped in panko breadcrumbs, the seafood was so sweet. This is coming from a girl who normally would not eat crumbed seafood under any circumstances (mr k actually ordered this and it was so good, we canceled my order of a curry and got another order of the seafood basket).

Dreaming of our return...

Lunch by boat

Lunch at a winery. We have some family visiting from overseas so we have been looking Perth through fresh eyes recently. One thing that has struck me is that Perth is EXPENSIVE! We eat out a lot but chose quality over location and thus tend to always have great meals at very reasonable prices. If we want a view, we generally buy up big at the Mt Claremont Farmer's seafood stand or at Seafresh in Innaloo and make up a very luxurious picnic and tell ourselves how much money we are saving while spending it all at the bottle shop.


We arrive at Sandalford by boat, try a few wines, enthusiastic and knowledgeable staff guide us through the tasting despite having just dealt with a very large group of loud tourists. They are professional and swift. During our lunch we saw many groups come through and the staff didn't seem to miss a beat. The tasting cost $2.50 for all wines which I originally was a bit dubious of but once I saw the volumes of people they were dealing with, I think it was a very reasonable price. Having said that, if you are serious about tasting the wines and getting some good information, don't come on the weekend.

Food wise, service was very courteous but a bit slow. We had to ask for the wine but our lovely young waiter went to find it for us and apologised profusely for it being late. It was hot, it was moderately busy and the buses full of tourists kept coming. Having worked in the hospitality industry for a good length of time, I felt for him and our other elderly waiter. My criticism would be leveled at management. Put more staff on. If you are charging between $35- 43 for a main at lunchtime you need to provide appropriate service. Our meals took 45 mins to arrive and while we were happy to wait due to lots of chatting (and prior nibbling on the boat)
I could see that some people around us were not so happy.

I had the wild mushroom Risotto with black truffle butter with asparagus and grilled haloumi served on the side. I couldn't really taste the truffle flavour at all, it was overwhelmed by the cheese used in the risotto. The asparagus was super fresh and cooked just the way I like it. The haloumi squeaked when chewed and to me that is a good sign. Pretty yum! I did have main envy for mr k's selection - crispy fried pork belly, seared scallops with bok choy, pineapple & chilli salsa, char sui sauce. I wish my photo could do the raspberry pink colour of the pork justice. I deliberately didn't choose it because I thought it would be too similar to the mahor of Star Anise and be a let down but mr k knew what he was doing. The crackling was brittle yet chewy and there was a faint tang of ainseed. I was allowed a sliver as proof of mr k's love. We washed it down with a bottle of the 2007 Reserve Chardonnay which was very nice (even I could taste that it had been put on French oak) but I could do more with $40 (buy 4 bottles of that beautiful fizzy from our Star Anise dinner:)
Other people in our little boat party tried the pasta, the scallops and the terrine...strike out, not worth it.

Will we be back? Mmmm, not likely, although mr k might get a hankering for the pork belly (although at $35 .5 a pop I don't think so).

Details

I can see that I may not be a very reliable blogger. Phrases such as "I'll post that tomorrow" should not be taken literally". Never mind.

The Vintage Cellars Readers' Dinners ( in combination with Gourmet Traveller have been held all in most of the major cities in Australia with the same wines being sampled but with individual restaurants putting their spin on pairing the food.

Perth's dinner was held at David Coomer's Star Anise
which was coincidentally named as the Sunday Times best Perth restaurant today.
Coomer was quoted in today's Sunday paper "maybe it's because I cook nice food, not because I suck up to people."

Coomer does cook nice food and it was very nice to have the opportunity to taste it.

First up was a little starter of some house smoked octopus, jamon serrano, piquillo pepper and tomato. I couldn't taste the octopus as the tomato was a little overpowering as was the pepper but the jamon was divine. This was paired with Cave de Lugny Cremant de Bourgogne Blanc de Blanc NV. This was the sublime little $10 fizzy I was talking about. Now I don't have a terribly refined palate which I am hoping that this blog will enable me to improve but this one did it for me. Slightly creamy and a bit dry (really revealing my lack of knowledge here) I think it would be nice with Ceduna oysters or some smoked salmon. We bought 3 bottles and I will be buying more.

Next up was Mahor seared scallops, caramelised duck, peanuts and pineapple. Hands down, this was mr k's pick of the night. He is a sucker for anything pork and seafood. This was paired with Fox Gorden Adelaide Hills Princess Fiano 2008 and Burgans Rias Baixas Albarino 2006. Big flavoured food. I loved this version of "Galloping Horses" however I did think it would be difficult to pair up with a wine due to the complexity of flavours. Each course was paired with two wines and this was the hardest course for our table to agree on which wine was the best pairing. Maybe it was the sugar, maybe it was the lingering flavours but we kept swinging back and forth between the two wines. Very enjoyable dilemma.

Next up was the 45' lightly smoked ocean trout with crackling, lotus root, enoki mushrooms, seaweed, edamame in a brown rice tea broth. This delicious concoction was paired with a Henry Henry Pellé Menetou-Salon Sauvignon Blanc 2007 and a Peregrine Central Otago Pinot Gris 2008. This was my favorite pairing of the night. The dish had slightly smoky notes and the Henry Pellé was the match for me. Although the trout had the appearance of being raw, it had actually been smoked and lightly poached. It was also topped with salmon pearls which were super fresh. Normally I'm not a huge fan of them but they added something to this dish.

Rangers Valley Black Angus Beef fillet with spiced puree of root vegetables, mustard cabbage and a garlic and rosemary foam was the least successful dish of the evening for me. I'm pretty picky with meat. I come from a long line of family cooks who take a special pride in cooking a "good steak". I have a special pan and everything, I'm quite annoying. I usually won't order steak when we are out because I want to eat something that takes a bit of time, care and skill that I can't replicate (or don't have the time or resources to). That being said, it was very tender, but it wasn't very flavorsome for me. Maybe I was still lingering on the trout. Wine was Bodegas Palacio Glorioso Rioja 2004 and Bodega Norton Reserve Malbec 2005. The Malbec did it for me and we ordered 4 bottles of this

Occelli Testus du Barolo, truffle honey & grapes was a revelation. I have never gotten into the truffle kerfuffle. I took a sneaky swipe of the honey while the wine guy was talking and mentally made a note to start bargaining with my husband to swap my cheese for more of his dessert. Thank the gods that I was thwarted in this plan. Cheese and truffled honey together...heaven. Husband tried to bargain with me. Despite our lovely waiter assertions that the portions were all weighed it was obvisous that the cheese gods particularly wanted me to savour this experience and I did. The crunch of the grape skins crusted on the side of the cheese...oh baby, nothing was getting in between me and this experience despite bribes coming in from all sides. Borie De Maurel La Féline La Livinière 2005 and Musella Valpolicella Superiore 2004 were the pairings with the Musella an obvious choice for me. It seemed to bring out the creaminess of the cheese.

The finale of the meal was an absolute powerhouse. I love passionfruit. Dad and I nearly had a falling out this week when he revealed that he gave away the last of the family beach house vines' fruit. Dessert was passionfruit souffle, passionfruit creme fraiche parfait with some kind of caramel brittle. It was creamy. It was light yet dense. It was almost sour. It made my dining companion's mouth "go all funny". This is my kind of dessert. It was served with a 2006 J. Vidal Fleury Muscat de Beaume de Venise. I'm not usually a muscat person but I drank this one with pleasure and then fought over the spare one ( one of our dining companions was thoughtfully pregnant and so not only drove but also had wines up for "dedication" during the meal). We bought four bottles of this.

The cost of the meal was $105 per head ($120 if you weren't a member). Exceptionally good value. Perth is a very expensive city to eat in. Although I seem to remember what wines we bought and how much we bought, I also remember that we bought 2 cases of wine and so it doesn't add up. A sign of a good night. If you do get a chance to go to a reader's dinner for Gourmet Traveller then jump to it, just remember to organise some friends to do it with.