I don’t know quite where The Old Dong Dong Noodles went but a visit to Dong Dong Noodles at Kingsford reveals a block packed with options and a brightly neon sign and an equally brightly lit new looking eatery packed with people. We’re greeted with a delicious looking window full of BBQ duck and pork-or a vegetarian’s worst nightmare. My Mother in law, a lifelong vegetarian, with parents that were vegetarian could not believe that they would string ducks up like that in an attempt to appeal the food to people. And I’ve yet to describe the idea of carving up a Peking Duck at the table to her, I think she would probably faint at seeing that.

It’s surprisingly larger than you’d think with a back room as well as the front room. we’re seated in the back room and given our large 210 item menus. My husband can’t help but comment that Gordon Ramsay would probably tell them to cut down their menu size. I’m dithering as I want to try some BBQ Duck but I want to try some tomato rice and some wonton soup. A closer look at the menu reveals many of the dishes, especially the noodle soup dishes are overlapped so that we actually found wonton noodle soup with BBQ Duck ($8) as well as a myriad of combinations. We also order a bowl of West Lake Shredded Beef souop ($4.50) and a plate of Roast Chicken Tomato rice ($6.80 plus 80c for tomato or “red” rice instead of plain rice).

Roast Chicken Tomato rice ($7.60 or $6.80 with plain rice)

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Dear Dairy,

Today I had a total and utter carbfest. It started with the morning where I heard howling and outside doors banging hard from the wind. It was freezing when I got out of bed (must learn how to set the timer on the heater so that I am woken at a more civilised temperature) and didn’t get much warmer. Even though I knew we were going out to eat shortly, it didn’t stop me from heating a bread roll, smothering it with butter, stuffing it with ham and swiss cheese and devouring it just before we left for a bakery to have brunch.

And so the day went on and we had our carb and pastry filled lunch and finished with creamy pasta with roasted pumpkin, peas and pinenuts. And I only need now to describe to you the lunch in which I stuffed myself full of bread.

Love,

NQN
xxx

I’ve rung ahead to find reserve myself a pie. Yes I know that sounds mad but I had heard that the pies at Sonoma were good and if I am to brave the crazy howling winds outside, I need to know that the trip will be worth it. We walk into their small shopfront, a bakery that churns out lovely sourdough for many of Sydney’s top restaurants along with a happy public trade. There are 4 small wooden tables inside along with some stools outside. My husband takes a seat inside by the window and grabs a copy of Gourmet Traveller (who knew he was interested?) while I order. I choose a Reuben sandwich (toasted) $8, the Lamb and Rosemary pie that I ordered ($6.50), a Chocolate Croissant ($2.80) and a cappucino ($3). For good measure I also buy a round loaf of the Olive bread ($6.00). It’s lucky I did reserve the pie as there is only one lone sausage roll in the warmer, the rest of the pies having sold out.

Lamb and Rosemary pie ($6.50)

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Despite the range of Thai restaurants on every corner of Kirribilli’s streets (we count 4 in one small space) we resisted and chose to dine at Ainoya, a Japanese restaurant we’ve walked past on our way to Kirribilli markets many a time, always closed during the day. We’re lured by good reports of the food and promises of melt in the mouth Japanese food. The interior is all blonde woods and Japanese paper lanterns. As we’re a table of 6, we are seated in the deep sunken table where we remove our shoes and put them to the side. This causes the men some anguish and confusion but we get there in the end. Service by the smiling owner is lovely but his staff are a little more formal and rigid. When Hot Dog brings a beer out they tell him that he can’t drink it there but the owner smiles and gestures that of course he can. I ask if they can take my new (snow white) coat only to be given a blank look and be told by the waitress “Sorry you’ll have to take that”. Hmmm I don’t relish the idea of folding up my coat to lie on the bench next to me all night but I have no choice.

We peruse the menu and order a selection of dishes to share. We mostly choose entrees as they are what have caught our eye. We order the Salmon and Avocado roll $7 for 4 pieces; Tuna Sashimi $17, Chicken Karaage $12; Aburi Sushi platter (blow torched sushi!) $19; Ika -Tem (Squid tempura with wasabi-mayo sauce) $14; Teriyaki Chicken $18; Wagyu Saikoro Steak $26; Kamo Tataki (Roasted duck with ponzu sauce) $19; Grilled Salmon $28; Ocean Trout with basil sauce $17 and a California Roll $7.

Tuna Sashimi $17

We’re not kept waiting long until the food comes out. The first to arrive is the Tuna Sashimi. I’m much more partial to Salmon Sashimi personally but the pale pink two-toned tuna sashimi is gorgeously fresh.

Ika -Tem (Squid tempura with wasabi-mayo sauce) $14

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Having the pleasure of seeing Mr Ramsay cook doesn’t always come cheap. I was lucky enough to get some Front row centre tickets as I made sure I was online the second they went on sale but looking at ebay just a couple of weeks before the show, I saw that a pair of tickets had sold for $350 (plus the book but lets face it, they weren’t after the book). So I hung onto my precious tickets and guarded them with my life. It’s a good year for me, I’ve already met my favourite female cook Nigella and now I am meeting my favourite male chef.

Crowd waiting for Gordon to arrive for his 1.30pm book signing

We met friend Gina, Teena and Philippe at noon and slowly made our way around the show. The crowds were thick and in a lot of cases unmoving. Gina vowed to visit next year on a Friday such were the crowds around some stands.

The line is large for Gordon and everyone is excited. They’ve expanded the size of the theatre due to demand for Gordon’s shows (they put up the price of the second wave of tickets to cover the cost of expanding the theatre).

We have brilliant seats, front row centre left, right in front of him cooking. There’s a bit of a warm up and prize giveaway prior to Gordon entering with his right hand man from Claridges Mark Sargeant whom I remember seeing on the F Word. There is a lot of clapping signalling that the crowd is restless and doesn’t want to hear any of the preamble, they just want Gordon. And after several “Here comes Goooordon Ramsay!!”, the man finally appears. He looks exactly like he does on the show and women everywhere swoon.

Two fans run onto the stage holding Gordon masks

It’s like a culinary version of Beatlemania with two girls running up to the stage with Gordon masks on sticks and declaring him their idol and asking for hugs. Several girls stop him during the show when he walks into the audience area and demand hugs to which he happily obliges.

Another fan wanting a hug

Gordon on stage is exactly what he is like on tv, except with a little less swearing and if you watch Hell’s Kitchen or Kitchen Nightmares, a lot less anger. He does manage to insult (in his charmingly blunt way) a slew of celebrities: Dannii Minogue for being plastic and melting in front of the oven and for having body parts less than 6 months old, Lisa Wilkinson (host of the Today show) whom he says has a penis, Anthony Worrall Thompson for winning the ugliest chef award 35 years running, Jamie Oliver for being a “fat tongued fat git” who makes fattening food and Matt Moran for having a poor turnout to the show (”They moved the curtain 4 rows from the front so Matt thought that it was full of people”) and of course the Diners Club sponsor when he whipped out his Black American Express card.

“Is this the size of your bush?”

He even makes fun of the audience and recalls falling in love with a French woman when he lived in France and asks if there are any French women in the audience. There is only one and he picks up a bunch of herbs and asks her “Is this the size of your bush?” to which she declares that hers is actually bigger.

Matt Moran with the fire extinguisher pounces on an unsuspecting Gordon and Mark

During the show Matt Moran bursts on stage with a fire extinguisher with sprays both Gordon and Mark, probably as revenge for his earlier comment.

Gordon’s little exchange with me

“I feel bad now”

I even had an exchange with Gordon himself while he was on stage. He pretended that he’d left copies of his cookbook under our seats but hadn’t so everyone got excited for a second then realised he was taking the piss. My friend was quite vocal in her “Awwww no!!” so he said to her “Did you think I’d put 2000 copies under everyone’s seat?” and she shrugged so I yelled out “Oprah would have!” and he laughed and touched his heart and says “Oh shit, really yeah I feel bad now”. Then he said “Where’s your husband?” and I pointed at my husband sitting next to me behind the camera and he said “Well he’s a lucky man”. Aww I feel touched by god!

Hand on his heart feeling bad that he hasn’t given us the books, Oprah style

While he is cooking, he gets a little more serious and explains tricks and rules to perfecting the dishes. He makes three dishes, a chorizo and bean soup, a lamb dish with a balsamic sauce which looks delectably luscious and a Pain Perdu (french toast) all intended to be dishes that you could make everyday from leftover ingredients.

Entree: Chorizo and bean soup

Main-Lamb

Dessert-Pain Perdu

After all of the cooking is done, he gives away items from the set to lucky audience members.

After this, he is off to his last book signing of the day where I tried to get my DVDs signed but they had cut the line off after a certain amount of people. As Gordon took time to chat and shake the hand or kiss and take a photo with every person in the line, the amount of people was relatively short but well rewarded. Whilst I would’ve loved a kiss and my DVDs signed I was happy with my small brush with Gordon!

Gordon signing one of many autographs

The crowd taking pictures of Gordon signing

And of the stands on offer, there were plenty of delicious morsels to be had, loads of samples and lots of great bargains.

Organic Times chocolates

One of my favourite stands, and the site of a big purchase was the Organic Times Chocolate stand where they were extremely generous with samples. We tried at least 8 of their varieties (and we could have tried more) before settling on dark chocolate coated licorice (mild), chocolate coated ginger (gorgeous large chunks of candied stem ginger enrobed in dark chocolate), dark chocolate coated macadamias and dark chocolate coated coffee beans. 3 boxes were $20 or 4 for $25.

Yumi’s dips

Another favourite stand of mine every year is Yumi’s dips which I adore. I especially like their olive dip, tuna mousse, smoked trout mousse, egg salad, pumpkin and Mediterranean eggplant dip and we buy up big here. As it is the last day, they offer us 7 dips for $12 which is a huge saving. I would have bought more except I know that I will be away for a month so I won’t be able to eat the fish dips.

Hillier’s chocolates offering is a huge bowl of wrapped chocolates. Despite his sad expression, the caramel ones were especially good

Pama Liquors

Pomegranate seemed to be the juice flavour of this year’s show with a couple of Pomegranate juice manufacturers as well as this Pomegranate liquor. I didn’t have time to try but I did love the bottles!

There were also whole hibiscus flowers soaked in Vodka. They had an interesting texture, much like beetroot with a sweetness from the flower itself and kick from the Vodka.

For those interested in eating lunch in a non bite sized sample portion, there were celebrity chef eateries churning out dishes.

I would probably have this expression if I had to wear the hat. Perhaps my husband was mocking him when he took the picture, hence the rather fierce expression.

We got to the Lindt stand a bit too late and missed out on the Lindor ball bags. Ah well, we still had lots of Organic chocolate.

All in all, it was another great show this year, made 100000% times better by the presence of Mr Ramsay. I don’t know how they will top that next year. After all, there is just one Mr Gordon Ramsay.

And Dear Reader, whilst you are reading this, I will probably be on a plane on my way to Tokyo, probably eating a dodgy airline meal (and of course photographing it). I shall have limited access to the internet for the first 10 days that I am away but will post stories every day so please feel free to make comments, I’ll approve and reply to them when I get more internet access, probably somewhere in Finland, our second destination. After Finland we will go to London to stay with my sister (where I will have unlimited internet access) and then a few days in Paris. Rest assured this will be an eating tour of these wonderful cities so once I am back in London, the tales of the bizarre, kitsch and delicious will flow.

Love Infrequent Flyer,

NQN
xxx

What on earth is a Pempek I hear you ask? I can only anticipate your question as that’s the exact thing that I said upon hearing it. Pempek is an Indonesian fish cake which is a mix of ground fish and flour, deep fried and comes in variety of shapes and is much loved food. This may sounds rather boring but it is nothing like the fish balls or cakes that your local asian food grocer stocks in the fridge. Incongruously, there is a Pempek Clovelly, not in the suburb Clovelly but in Kensington on Anzac Parade. It’s not a fancy looking place, somewhat dowdy in fact like most of the eateries on Anzac Parade but it is supposed to serve some fabulous Pempek so a Pempek-ing We Go!

There are already several tables of people seated as we walk in and the waiter is hurriedly bringing out dishes for them. We sit down and stare at the menu for a while. It’s in Indonesian with an english translation and some pictures of the food. We’re not quite sure how the Pempek is served, it seems you can get a bowl of it but it is priced per piece from $2.50 to $17.50 for the large sampler plate. Our waiter comes back with a smile on his face, apologises and takes our order. We choose to go individually as this is our first time trying it and order a Pempek Lenjer (Fish stick), Pempek Kulit (fish cake skin) and Pempek Bulet (fish cake ball), all $2.50 each, usually 3 per serve . We order some Bakso Abang Abang Indo style noodle soup ($8), a piece of Ayam Goreng ($5) and a noodle dish with Lontang (rice cakes), vegetables and tofu with peanut sauce ($9). There’s a note that all of the meat supplied is Halal and a request on the wall that no alcohol is consumed on the premises. There’s also a helpful reminder that Anzac Parade is a tow away zone before 7pm should any patrons enjoy their food, only to find later that their car has been towed away.

Pempek Lenjer (Fish stick), Pempek Kulit (fish cake skin) and Pempek Bulet (fish cake ball), all $2.50 each

It’s a short while before our Pempek arrives, the three crispy pieces in a bowl of cuko (a sweet thin sauce made of brown sugar, garlic and vinegar) served with a side pot of chili. Ahhh ok so this is the soup we were seeing pictured. The first Pempek we try is the round fish ball, split into quarters and open like a flower. Each segment is delicious especially when dunked into the sauce although the taste isn’t very fishy at all. It could be any sort of filling, even deep fried tofu although it is tastier than tofu. The accompanying chili sambal is very hot and strong, unlike most of the chili sauce one gets so we treat it with caution.

We try the second Pempek, the Pempek Lenjer (Fish stick). The texture to this is slightly different although if you asked me to describe how different, I’d have difficulty. The crispy baton was more moist then the others and tasted like it had some sort of vegetable in it.

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