Since Australia has technically avoided a recession I should really rename this the GFC busting lunch. For a year, Marque restaurant in Surry Hills has been offering Friday lunch diners a 3 course Prix Fixe menu for $45. As a 4 course meal can set you back $95, it’s a great, inexpensive way to try Mark Best’s outstanding cuisine. I’m joined for my first visit to Marque by my dining companions Teena and Gina.
Amuse Bouche: Beetroot macaron with foie gras centre
I’m excited to see the reappearance of the beetroot macarons which I first tried at the Taste of Sydney Media Launch. They’re light as air alongside the pale, moussey foie gras and collapse when bitten into.
Bread and butter
The serving size of the bread is generous with 2 thick slices given to each of us. Teena and I prefer the brown bread with aromatic fennel seed whilst Gina prefers the white.
Appetiser: Chaud froid egg with salted grissini
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I was in my pajamas and my carrots were old.
This is not the way I like to start any post admittedly but it’s the brutal truth. It was a Sunday morning and it was cold. I was awoken by the loudspeaker from the Balmoral Burn charity run nearby and I wasn’t in a great mood. And because I had woken so early I had an excess of time and my first instinct was to cook. I needed to make a soup for my husband’s lunch that coming week and the carrots I had in the fridge were starting to look a little less appealing. They weren’t awful but they lost that smooth bright orange coat that they had only a couple of days before.
A friend and I were discussing the inevitable Winter weight gain. Well lamenting it was more like it. Stews, pastas and roasts are de rigeur whereas salads and sorbets are out. One way to try and counteract it is with this soup which is very low in fat but full of flavour. Other benefits are of course that it can be made vegetarian and is very inexpensive to make so there’s no reason not to try a bit of detoxing. If only for a meal or two.
Tell me Dear Reader, what are your tactics to avoid Winter weight gain or weight gain in general? Or do you surrender to Winter and come Summer take action?
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When I first heard of Bonta Vita, I knew it was the kind of place that I had to save for M and her boys. It’s a Malaysian Italian restaurant serving Rizza or Roti Pizza (pronounced Ritza) were their star item. I had also read about the Rice Dice where rolling the dice allows you to decide what you’re eating that night and if you happen to roll the same numbers, your table gets free gelato so I knew that the idea of winning a dessert would appeal enormously to them. Indeed S has fantasies of living for free here just eating dessert (yes he of the never ending dessert tank).
BYO torch for menu reading
It’s part of the Lumiere building, where we walk past the colourful fountain which has everyone oohing and aahing with the changing light colours. S says in hushed tones “Mummy, can we afford this place?”. We walk in and it’s nicely outfitted. We’re shown our booth which is actually a booth that has another table added to it which is either a good thing or a bad thing as everyone feels quite apart but as we learn later, the narrow booth table requires this in order to fit our food. And it also smells pervadingly of fried chicken owing to the KFC next door and is incredibly dark so we resort to using a shared torch to read the menu, not something we ever have issues with so hopefully you’ll forgive the less than stellar photographs that we got. Our waiter brings over four tealights which don’t really help. Some of the lights are turned on, but most remain out for the whole time we are there.
I inquire about the Rice Dice and the waiter says that that was from an old menu item but after some discussion he brings us the menu and I read out the instructions. It’s different from when Ffichiban visited, quite different in fact that there are actually now 3 dice you have to roll and now you have to order an entree, main and dessert. When FFichiban visited it was 2 dice and you just ordered a rice dish and a side. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that rolling a triple is a lot harder than rolling a double and you are possibly up for pretty expensive meal with rules such as “if you don’t obey the dice, you must buy a round of drinks for the whole table” and with their drinks being $8.90, it seems like the odds are definitely stacked in the house’s favour. Your 3 course meal could cost you anything between $38 to $69.
Apricot Moon and Suai Suai $8.90 each
Instead we order what we like. The menu is broken down into section from Rizzas, Malaysian food and Italian food. We start with drinks. I’m intrigued by the Apricot Moon drink described as “a unique Egyptian blend, especially made for us using apricot that is mixed with secret recipes that takes 2 days of preparation to be served to our customers”. I’m hopeful and at $8.90 it sounds like it might be quite special indeed. One sip and instantly we taste dried apricots. We can figure that it’s made by soaking dried apricots for 2 days in hot water and then pureeing them. I know because I’ve done it for an apricot sorbet and it tasted exactly like this. The Suai Suai is plain yogurt mixed with kiwi, vanilla gelato and a dash of honey blended with ice which tastes like a honey smoothie. This also doesn’t quite reach the heights of the description.
Rizza #1
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I recently tweeted about my husband buying me a Hard Drive. The look on his face was pure beaming pride, something about being a good provider for his wife and despite the fact that the Hard Drive was a much needed purchase, I couldn’t help wishing that it was a a pair of shoes. Yes I am a rather ungrateful wife but I am willing to bet that if you were offered a choice between a Hard Drive and a pair of Choos, you’d choose the latter.
However my compass also points to gifts of food and when we were given our goody bags from the Pork Dinner I got extremely excited with my gift – a gorgeous 1.2 kg Murray Valley Moisture Infused rack of pork. It seems that they know that people can overcook pork and therefore this precooking process, similar to brining helps to ensure that the meat remains succulently moist. The possible downside to this is that some find it hard to get a truly crispy crackling with all of this brine as the best crackling is from a very dry rind.
How did I find it? Slicing into it, it’s absolutely gorgeous and moist and not a single bit dry at all. In fact even after leaving it to rest for the requisite time, I found that the juices flowed and I became something of an overawed idiot tweeting such provocative nonsensicalisms such as “I’ve just been porked” and “It was hot and juicy porking”. And of course I went straight for the crackling. I’ve said it before, Crackling is my Crack and this is every bit as crispy as I could’ve dreamed up and a lovely contrast to the super moist meat. The best of both worlds if you will.
Tell me Dear Reader, what is your favourite type of roast? Do you have any tips for a good roast?
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The dumplingers
My husband never really gets excited about food. So much so that the idea of dining at Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant didn’t thrill him much. He just saw it as a place at which he had to grudgingly wear a suit. However when I read Ffichiban’s review signalling the Northside arrival of Shanghai style dumplings, I knew that this would excite him. We’ve always had to trek all the way to Ashfield to get these little plump morsels of soup and meat but now we’re pleased to discover a closer location in Chatswood. A sister restaurant to New Shanghai in Ashfield, the Chatswood location has been open for 2 months already.
At 2pm there is already a queue and a stand with a sheet of paper you write down your name and tear off a tag with your number and wait. We end up waiting for about 10 minutes while watching the 4 dumpling ladies in matching aprons make each dumpling pleating and pleating until the requisite number of pleats appears on top.
It’s a large rectangular space full of people and the tables are rickety and flimsy despite how new it is. The menu has lots of pictures to make it easy to choose but of course we know what we want. We choose a range of dishes including some Cold dishes, soup and of course dumplings and the level of English here with the waitstaff is very good particularly when compared with Ashfield.
Iced green bean drink $4.20
Our drink arrives quickly and I may have spoken too soon. I asked for red bean and I’m given green bean which I don’t really mind. It’s mostly ice and the thick straw helps a little in sucking up the drink although a long handled teaspoon is needed for the pieces at the bottom.
Pork Ribs $4.80
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