The cooking, eating and travel blog of a hungry blogger from Sydney, Australia featuring original recipes, interviews and articles on all things food @ Not Quite Nigella

Monthly Archives: January, 2009

Arbutus restaurant, Soho, London

Posted in Hatted & Michelin restaurants,London Eating & Travel,UK Eating & Travel

It’s been several months since our trip to Europe and yet I’m still feeding you stories of our travels in London. I apologise Dear Reader, I still have some stories on our 2 day stopover in Tokyo on the way back. Arbutus is a 1 starred Michelin restaurant in London, named after the Arbutus tree (another name for strawberry tree) that grows in nearby Soho Square.

The Menu

Tonight, we’re given the menu and we choose quickly as we need to leave early to make the Jack the Ripper tour. I order from the Pre theatre menu (3 courses for £17.50) and my dining companion isn’t very hungry so she orders a la carte. We let our waitress know, she’s lovely as is most of the other staff. They even apologise for it being so empty which they needn’t do. And as requested, my entree arrives quickly.

Pork porchetta with granny smith apple puree (pre-theatre menu)

The pork porchetta is absolutely lovely and soft and very thinly sliced, like the softest, thinnest, tenderest meat you could dream up.

Elwy valley lamb breast and sweetbreads, fresh borlotti beans and sweet peppers £16.95

14 comments | January 17th, 2009 - 7:00 am | Not Quite Nigella

Dulce de Leche or Confiture de Lait

Posted in Cooking and Recipes,Jams & Spreads

I know someone that is a huge traveler. She has a passport stamped with virtually every country on earth save Antarctica and she will not stop. Her travels are often borne from the search for food specific to the region or country with just one disastrous attempt to find Kobe beef in Kobe. When she was visiting me in Japan, she didn’t realise that Kobe beef was indeed available at my local Tokyo Supermarket so she traveled to Kobe and wasn’t able to find any Kobe beef. To add insult to injury, she ended up defeated, at McDonalds eating a Chicken burger. I’ve told her many a time that if she’d just stop traveling for a second, she’d be able to write a blog about her eating adventures but she cites a short attention span as preventing this.

After one trip to South America she brought back a treasure trove of goodies, including dulce de leche cookies. My oh my, these are things of beauty. I forgot all pretense of eating a couple of dainty cookies and polished off a whole layer of the box. If I see Dulce de Leche flavoured anything on the menu I’ll order it, mainly because it’s not really widely available or known here. For those of you unfamiliar with it, I urge you to become instantly familiar, indeed downright intimate with it. It’s a gorgeous caramelised milky syrupy jam. Like the most gorgeous caramel you can use it in biscuits, cakes, ice cream or on toast for something different.

For me, I set about making some pots of this for Christmas presents. I wanted friends to try something that they may not have had before. And Christmas time seems to be the time when diets and restrictive eating goes out the window. And yes I know what you’re going to ask next: it is wonderful by the spoonful from the jar. It is essentially like the Caramel Top N Fill but what is the fun in buying it when you can make it and infuse it with your own flavours.

This version is for the forgetful, clumsy or prone to drama who are scared of boiling the cans for several hours at a risk of the cans exploding. I am one of them, fearful of having caramel coating all kitchen surfaces. My husband told me a story of being on a boat sailing and one of his friends cooked frankfurts in a pressure cooker and the skin of one got stuck in the hole and the whole pressure cooker exploded. One gentleman got a sausage in his ear and over the next few weeks they kept finding bits of frankfurt all over the boat. I’d like to avoid this fate, especially where caramel is concerned.

And when I saw fellow blogger’s Angela’s milk ice cream with Dulce De Leche on it I knew I had to whip up some to go with it so in the way she approached it as a milk ice cream with some Dulce de leche on top, I approached it the reverse way as some Dulce de Leche with some milk ice cream. Brilliant minds think alike or so I like to think

56 comments | January 16th, 2009 - 7:00 am | Not Quite Nigella

Peking Duck Restaurant, Beverly Hills, 2209

Posted in Chinese,Eating,Restaurants by cuisine,Sydney - South,Sydney - West

For those readers outside of Australia, Beverly Hills zip code 2209 in Sydney is really not very similar to Beverly Hills 90210 in L.A. I recall reading a tongue in cheek comparison of the two suburbs and whilst 90210 is glamourville, 2209 in Sydney is a down home suburb largely absent of Porsches, celebrities and multi million dollar Mansions. It was in an odd way funny that we were going here for my father’s birthday, on January 1st, as I had just finished the Tori Spelling autobiography sTORI Telling which was a surprisingly entertaining read, her father of course producing 90210 and she starring in it. Don’t judge me. My next book is Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, I promise.

A bit of history…

The 3 types of Peking Duck on offer

I wanted to visit here after reading about Belle’s visit in which she talked about the Mantou buns with sweetened condensed milk and Beijing or Peking Duck. As the name suggests, their specialty is Peking Duck and they have 3 different versions which vary according to the accompaniments that you order priced from $58, $68 to $78.

Mr Cleaver

There’s a man in chef’s whites wielding a cleaver straddling the space between the two rooms and he continually slices the skin and meat off the duck. And we mean continuously as the restaurant is full by 7pm and it seems that everyone wants their duck.

Complimentary peanuts

Green pumpkin water $4

Unlike many Chinese restaurants, tea is charged separately starting at $4.50 per pot so we opt to go for a big jug of apple juice as the weather outside is hot. I am also intrigued by the Green Pumpkin Water drink on the menu so I order this in the hopes of having a Harry Potter moment but it appears that something was lost in the translation and this is Winter Melon juice. Not quite as exciting as a Green Pumpkin juice. It’s an unusual tasting drink, very sweet much like an Iced tea rather than a fruit or vegetable juice.

Ducks wings $3.80

Served cold, this serve is a generous 11 wings, cooked in a slightly herbal tasting sauce. Only my husband seems to take to these although I can imagine these would be nice in a clear broth to help balance out the herbal taste and to warm them up.

Fried slices pork belly and vegetables with a spicy sauce $16.80

We were confused when we saw this dish as I expected something a bit different but the fried slices pork belly and vegetables with a spicy sauce were quite delicious, the sauce quite spicy with a black bean taste to them. However we find that there is not a great deal of meat in this dish – what ultra thinly sliced pork belly there is is savoured and vegetables make up a large proportion of the dish, including the not particularly nice green part of the leek. I don’t think it’s a great sign that they use this part as it’s usually discarded or used to flavour soups, not as a stir fry ingredient. The amount of them leftover attests to how everyone else at the table found it.

Griddled bean curd sticks with pork and vegetable hot pot $16.80

We find the same situation with the griddled bean curd sticks with pork and vegetables. The dish is about 50% onion and only a small amount of pork and slightly more bean curd sticks. A disappointment as the flavours are good and it’s just a pity that they pad it out with cheaper ingredients.

Steamed Golden bread with Sweetened condensed milk $10 for 6 buns

If there’s one thing I firmly believe in, it’s the power of sweetened condensed milk. It’s my Windex. There’s nothing that can’t be solved by it. World wars and peaces treaties could be brokered with the stuff. So when I see Mantou buns with sweetened condensed milk, it’s an obvious order. The steamed buns (the white ones) are pillowy soft and collapse under each bite, the golden ones are deliciously airy, crispy and light.

40 comments | January 15th, 2009 - 7:00 am | Not Quite Nigella

Maple, Walnut and Cheese Bread

Posted in Breads,Breakfast recipes,Cooking and Recipes,Perfect Picnic Food,Sydney - North

Sometimes instead of running out to the shops for a new loaf of bread, I find that if I have the time, I prefer to make it. I would never have ordinarily done this a few years ago, pre-KitchenAid and its wonderful dough hook attachment. My arms simply don’t have the stamina for kneading (although carrying shopping bags seems to be an exception to this rule), nor does my mind have the patience so I always bought bread thinking that the rising yeast and kneading was too much of a production. Indeed the feeble attempts that I had made warned me off baking it myself as I’d often give up mid-knead resulting in a cake more than a bread. But now since I have the Dough Hook, bread is no longer my bête noire. I adapted this recipe from Nigella’s How to be a Domestic Goddess, which has to be my favourite ever cookbook, and heeded her comment about how this bread really came into its own with cheese so I thought why not add some cheese throughout the bread?

I’ve often heard real estate agents purport that the smell of baking bread or freshly brewing coffee is a good way to sell a house and whilst I’ve never needed to sell a house, I have been lured by the smell of freshly baking bread. It’s something that even a hardened carb phobic like me finds hard to resist. When this came out of the oven, I took to it with a bread knife and cut myself a couple of slices and slathered them with butter. It was perfection. I then proceeded to cut off some more pieces before I realised that a good third of the loaf was gone. And I enjoyed every minute of being part of its disappearance.

26 comments | January 14th, 2009 - 7:00 am | Not Quite Nigella

Oceanic Cafe, Surry Hills, Sydney (a step back in time)

Posted in Cheap Thrills $20 or under pp,Eating,English,NQN's most memorable moments and meals,Restaurants by cuisine,Special Features,Sydney - CBD and inner city

There are some places, that seem a little charmed, like a glimpse back in time to another era or place that you may have only seen in movies. These places usually have a story attached to them and Queen Viv’s recommendation of the Oceanic Cafe is one of them. Run by a Mother and Daughter team as a community service for those in need, the interior of the cafe is a sight to behold. Unchanged from the original 1920′s interior, there are booth style seats, roughly drawn menus that you know haven’t changed in decades and specials of the day at the princely sum of $5 (the most expensive item being $9). As we walk in, they peer out from the little window to see who the interlopers are. We order at the table with the daughter, a smiling, slightly nervous woman who is a little hard of hearing but nevertheless unassuming and well meaning.

Specials board (and my shoulder-yes I love polka dots)

There are two other older gentlemen customers sitting separately, quietly eating their meal, and we feel almost like we shouldn’t be too noisy. One gets the feeling that they have their own way of doing things and it would distress to diverge. We order the special of the day, the Lamb’s fry (liver) with onions, chips and peas $5; the bacon and eggs with chips and peas $5 and the Rissoles with onions, chips and peas $5 plus a cup of tea $2.

We hear the sizzle of the hot plate and looking through the little window Queen Viv points out the very old fashioned and original dish drying racks and pots, something we’ve never seen before. All of the meals come with white sliced bread and a pat of margarine in a round silver dish with the napkin tucked underneath the bread. We pay as soon as the food arrives and we ask her for water as well as it’s a sweltering 37C degrees outside. She asks us if it’s ok if it’s tap water and of course we don’t mind.