“Honey don’t take this the wrong way but that’s the best looking kitchen of chefs I’ve ever seen” I whisper to Mr NQN. He laughs and says “If you think so, if you think so honey“. Tonight seems to be a casting call for a chef drama show. It’s Saturday night and at 8.30pm we have entered Attica, a restaurant featured in the Top 100 restaurants of the world (at number 73) and with two hats in the Age Good Food Guide from 2008-2010. Attica’s New Zealand born chef Ben Shewry features in the “Coco” book where established chefs nominate up and coming chefs.

My flu has turned nasty and morphed into bronchitis and I am coughing . The restaurant manager Ainslie immediately offers me a hot lemon drink which I immediately and gratefully accept (after all there is tasting to do! ). Luckily I haven’t quite lost my sense of smell and taste and throughout the evening aromas waft past me.

We start with a sourdough and multigrain bread. It comes as a generous half roll of each with a whipped olive oil with black sea salt and a butter. The whipped olive oil with sea salt is voluptuously creamy and spreads like a soft jelly. It is whipped with a gelatin to keep its soft jelly-like texture and it is cold smoked to give it a light smokey flavour.

Amuse bouche: carrots

This pretty amuse bouche comprised of heirloom and Dutch carrots in yellow, orange and purple varieties that are compressed in their own juice. They’re served with raw chestnuts with a Meredith blue goat’s cheese and paper thin raw Dutch carrot slices. It’s decorated with carrot leaves and it is served in a bed of sweet, thick carrot reduction which tastes like sweet, syrupy carrot juice.

Snow Crab

Peeking under the snow capped mountain…

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Dining room-ha!

After stepping off a long, arduous flight to L.A. my first instinct is to reach for food, particularly as we are in the land of some of my favourite foods. While we are in the cab speeding to the nearest In N Out Burger I clap my hands together in excitement and chant “In N out! In N out!”. The cab driver looks at me like I have taken leave of my senses and Mr NQN rolls his eyes and smiles. For the entire flight here, he has been listening to me chattering about the burgers I will order: a 4×4 burger and the fries “animal style”.

Umm.. that looks a little close!

In N Out Burger isn’t fancy stuff. It’s a burger chain which is frequented by celebrities (Gordon Ramsay is apparently a fan and it was mentioned in the film The Big Lebowski), celebutantes and regular folk with over 200 branches across the Western United States. We pull up nearby and the cab driver asks “Would you like me to drive through or do you want to eat in?” which we chuckle at. I haven’t quite gotten to the stage of hailing a cab to take me through a drive thru (but give me time). We alight and I promptly almost get run over in my excitement (ack, we keep looking for cars on the wrong side of the road!). A plane flies just overhead. There’s a row of cars that snakes around the Drive Thru and there is an In N Out employee with an electronic ordering board taking orders.

We walk in and it’s very busy this Fourth of July. In N Out has a (not so) secret menu with items that do not appear on the in store menu.  The in store menu is simple and features just three types of burgers: a hamburger, a cheeseburger and a double double (two patties and two slices of cheese). There are also fries, soft drinks (including pink lemonade-weee!) and shakes in strawberry, chocolate and vanilla. The secret menu however has items such as a 3×3 (three  patties, three slices of cheese) and a 4×4 (four patties and four slices of cheese) . You can also bling up your fries by asking for them “Animal style” which are French fries with melted American cheese, “spread” and barbecued onions. Or you can go “low protein” by getting it in lettuce instead of in a bun.

Open since 1948 they proudly boast that their meat is without fillers or preservatives and is not frozen. There are no freezers, microwaves or heat lamps and everything is made fresh to order. They reportedly have hand sliced vine ripened tomatoes and they slice the fries daily at each store.  Shakes are made using real ice cream. I place my order with the friendly clerk and he asks

“Are you going to give the 4×4 a go?”.

“Well I’m going to give it a go. Have you tried one?” I ask him.

“Well I tried a 3×3…once…” he admits.

*gulp*

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I wake up one Saturday morning, still a touch fluey and look into the bathroom mirror.

“Arrggggh!” I let our a strangled cry. The pizza we had the night before in a bathrobe in front of the TV which seemed  good idea at the time, was not. It shows on my face which is blotchy and pale. And why am I anguished? Because Mr NQN and I are off to attend a Masterclass at Pullman’s Bacar restaurant where we will learn how to make four restaurant quality courses. The catch? Sydney Weekender are filming! Eeek we may very well be on film (even shy Mr NQN). As Australia is currently Masterchef mad, one NQN viewer and their friends will get the chance to attend a Masterclass of their own at Bacar (not affiliated with the show).

The schedule for the class is:

11:00am: Participants arrive, champagne on arrival

11:30am: Chef gives a guided tour of the kitchen

11:45am: Participants are broken into 4 teams, 1 team for each course

Chef then briefs all teams on the preparation of their course

12:00pm: Teams are given approx 90mins to prepare their mise en place

The chef and assistant are present at all times and to guide and instruct

1:00pm: Class finishes up and participants are seated at the chefs table

Restaurant manager talks about the matching wines for the lunch

1:15pm The team who prepared the 1st course then go back into the kitchen and plate their prepared dish for the rest of the participants. Once the dish is served all participants then dine together.

Once everyone has finished their meal, the participants who prepared the mise en place for the second course then enter the kitchen to serve their dish. The process is the same for all remaining courses.

3:00pm: Chef sits with guests and enjoys answering any questions before the lunch concludes.

Bill Magno the Head Chef splits us up into four groups to each prepare one of the courses. Despite the fact that I love making desserts, chocolate fondant is a dessert that I haven’t had a lot of success with. But mother and daughter team Heather & Fran are assigned that much to my relief and I’m paired up with Ian to make the scallop dish which is the second course out of the four. Everyone in the class is friendly and welcoming and help each other out.

From this…

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