“I could give birth any minute now” Christie says to me as she picks me up outside of my house. My eyes widen in slight panic. I’m on my learners driver’s license and can only drive supervised. Besides which, I have very little to no experience in childbirth so I’m fairly useless in this situation. “Please don’t give birth right now! ” I say to her as we drive Northside towards Pymble.

We are headed towards Pymble to try out Dietmar Sawyere’s bistro called Ad Lib. He is of course famous for being the chef at Berowra Waters Inn and former chef of Forty One and this is said to be a more affordable nod to French Bistro food. Indeed from looking at the menu some mains can be had for less than $30 which is somewhat of a minor miracle in Sydney. The menu is broken up into three sections, hors d’oeuvres, seasonal specialities and mains. It’s a hard task deciding what to order as there are some dishes that seem a little Berowra Waters Inn and then there are some tempting French classics.

Duck Liver parfait with onion marmalade $17

We start with a dish that comes to us from the chef which thoughtfully makes ordering a bit easier. It’s the duck liver parfait with onion marmalade. It comes with some thinly sliced but still slightly soft (I don’t enjoy it when the toast is too hard) pieces of toast and in presented very well, so well that others next to us coo over the presentation and it turns out that we are sitting next to other bloggers too! The parfait is airy and moussey with a layer of liquidey fat on top. I unclip the jar and dig in. It’s fantastic, mild with liver and especially good when paired with the red onion marmalade which has an ever so slight touch of chilli which was serendipitous.

Steak Tartare $19

OK it’s time to get serious now and we need to order. Ever since I visited Montreal, it rekindled my love for steak tartare. I order a small version of this for my entree. Sometimes it comes pre mixed and sometimes it comes with the condiments separately and you need to mix them together yourself. Here it us all done for you. I take a bite and the meat is gloriously soft, just the right texture and it is perfectly seasoned with a hint of mustard, very finely diced onion, chives and a dash of Tabasco. I would imagine that you would need to know what you’re doing when seasoning this for if you let the customer mix it up themselves, then they can do what they like and the seasoning is left up to them. I’m pleased to see the salad is dressed with a lovely slightly sweet dressing and there are also some lovely grilled mushroom quarters in it.

Tarte Flamiche of leeks and gruyere, tomato, olive and shallot salad $16

Christie’s dish is the tart flamiche with leeks and gruyere. The pastry is snappily crisp and there is a thick layer of finely sauteed leeks and gruyere. The leeks are sauteed until translucent but not caramelised so that they don’t become sweet. Interestingly it is served cold whereas we both prefer pastry warm. It is served with a tomato, olive and shallot salad.

Snowy Mountains trout fillet, yabbie tails, lemon, capers, parsley $38

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Happy Monday to you Dear Reader! Today I am meeting Chocolate Pied Piper Myriam. The reason why I call her a Pied Piper is because she holds chocolate tours across Sydney (check out her upcoming 13 desserts of Christmas lunch!). This isn’t a chocolate tour but after reading about her rave for the Kakawa Lemon Chocolates naming them the best lemon chocolates in the world I just had to visit Kakawa. After all, this is a woman who travels across the world to find the best chocolate and she somehow stays sylphlike and thin (arrgh French women! ). And you know I’m on a general life pursuit to find the best of everything so this peaked my interest and we made a date to meet up.

Wall of single origin chocolate

Kakawa is a little chocolate shop in the middle of busy William Street which has a slightly different appearance and philosophy to other chocolatiers. Started by the chocolatier Jin (former pastry chef of Flying Fish) and her partner David (former chef at Quay) just over a year ago it is quietly snapping up awards for their chocolates. The kitchen is open plan and if you walk in around 8.30am you might see them either making the ganache, if you pop in at 9am they may be tempering the chocolate or between 11am to noon you may see them busy enrobing the chocolate.

Chocolate CDs

The other thing that they emphasise is that their chocolate shelf life is a mere 10 days. Not only is this because they use items like fresh cream but they also do not believe that chocolate that sits on shelves for longer tastes as good. As a result each type of their rotating and sometimes changing 32 flavours is made by hand in batches as small as 20 pieces to ensure turnover and freshness. The chocolates take between half a day to two days from beginning to end. And chocolate is ideally stored at between 15 and 18 degrees Celsius says Jin.

And then there’s the water ganache. Keen bakers will know that water is always thought to be the enemy of melted chocolate. But here, they create a water based ganache where they use water, usually flavoured with a herb in a tisane and slowly adding it in. This takes more time and this perhaps accounts for why they are the only chocolatier that does this water ganache. The result as seen in the sweet Thai basil truffle is a very strong and clear basil and mint flavour. These are particularly susceptible to the 10 day freshness rule and after 10 days a mold will develop.

Jin and David

“When people try our chocolates, they can identify the flavour” David says. They use a combination of chocolates from several chocolate producers: Amadei, Valrhona, Michel Cluizel, Callebaut Single Origin and Belcolade.

We do a little chocolate tasting of three single origin chocolates as they have a wall of single origin chocolates.  We try a Valrhona from Ecuador called Jivara at 40% cocoa, a Michel Cluizel Santo Domingo 67% and an Amedei Chuao which is my favourite chocolate as it is a dark chocolate without any bitterness to it at all, just a lovely smoothness. It is so prized and expensive that squares of it are sold alongside the truffles so that customers can try it in a smaller quantity and understand why it costs so much more than the others. Along with the single origin chocolates there are 120 different products from ice cream sandwiches, iced chocolates, rocky road, nougat, chocolate CDs, caramels etc as well as the glass display case of bonbons and moulded chocolates. Some items are developed because of customer demand such as the rocky road, nougat and marzipan.

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“Madonna is in for lunch, Elton John wants a birthday cake, Joan Collins is in the queue in the cafe, Sean Connery loves the beef, Mick Jagger can’t get a table because Michael gave it to his wife. Michel Roux wants you to autograph his lunch menu, Alain Ducasse wants the recipe for the snapper and Marco Pierre-White wants to know where you came from. And can Michael make a menu for Dustin Hoffman?”.

And so writes chef Michael Moore that these things actually did happen to him within the space of one week. British born chef Moore (not the filmmaker or the other American chef) grew up in a caravan-he tells us that “a caravan” is listed as his birthplace on his birth certificate. He now owns and is the chef at the Summit restaurant in Sydney. It’s been years since I visited but I do remember the delicious food and the lovely view (although they could work on the service ).

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