Mondays are my day in. The weekends are always hectic and whilst I still work on Monday I rarely venture out of the house as that requires a kerfuffle that I just can’t muster. But when the email arrived in my inbox to ask if I would be interested in more than a dining experience at the two month old restaurant Concrete Blonde and that involved me visiting the farms from which they buy the produce, picking produce and then taking it back to the restaurant well that was something worth breaking my “no outings on Monday” policy.

First things first though. Why the name Concrete Blonde? Well, according to the owner Peter Polovin the restaurant was originally a gymnasium that was built in floor to ceiling concrete. They have kept the concrete floors but changed to insulated ceilings to keep the noise down. So that’s the concrete explained but why the blonde? Well there is a blonde facing the bathroom and it’s a catchy name as people remember the band although the restaurant has nothing to do with the band.

I arrive at Concrete Blonde’s Kings Cross location slightly breathless and seven minutes late for our little road trip to visit two farms that supply them with their produce. The first farm is Grima’s farm who supply Hong Kong born chef Patrick Dang with vegetables, in particular the baby vegetables that he loves to use and the second farm is the Darling Mills farm that supply him with herbs and lettuces. Dang is softly spoken and accompanied by chef de partie Mark and apprentice Angie.

In the car on the way to the farm Patrick talks about his influences and how he trained under Pierre Gagnaire and travelled extensively before settling back in Australia where he earned his Finance degree at UTS. His theory is that food should stir the brain and soul and that’s where originality comes into play. To him the best way to cook is to tell a story whether it be a memory of when he visited Italy and saw a beautiful pasta made by an Italian grandmother or the time that you ate at a three star Michelin restaurant. He adds that “I want to understand what makes a good artichoke…I have a commitment to myself to understand where it (produce) is coming from.” And of the chefs in Australia that he admires he cites The Royal Mail’s Dan Hunter, Attica’s Ben Shewry and Vue de Monde’s Shannon Bennett. And it seems a part of him is still longing for Hong Kong’s dining scene.

Chef Patrick Dang and Sam Grima

We arrive at the Grima’s farm in Horsley Park. Patrick is on a mission: artichokes, and the field is full of them in several varieties. The Grima’s farm is a third generation farm run by two brothers Sam and Danny Grima. The brothers are also at Flemington markets every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. There is a total of about 34 acres of land on three different locations and the first farm where the packing and storage shed is located has plenty of cavalo nero and artichokes. Sam tells us how he farms in rotation and how they change the crops so that the subsequent crops aren’t from the same family. For example a cauliflower wouldn’t be grown after a broccoli and they would instead plant from a different family.

Cavalo Nero

Sam and Angie hand over a radish flower to taste. “Can you use these?” Sam asks and Patrick nods while chewing on it. He then shows us the baby fennel or finger fennel which isn’t just regular fennel that they harvest early. This won’t grow as large as a regular fennel and the flavour is more subtle. They grow a range of vegetables here including corn, baby, golden and target beetroot, zucchini, capsicum, eggplant as well as purple and white varieties of heirloom carrot and they’re investigating growing red carrots. Patrick is also after prickly pear to use. He tells us that at the onset of each season he likes to visit the farms to see what they have that he can use and what new items he can make use of.

French breakfast radishes

Stinging nettle

Sam is excited to show us all of the things he is growing including stinging nettles which actually do sting Angie on the arm and result in little bumps that resemble bites. We make our way to the next farm just opposite this farm where more produce is grown. There are experimental varieties here as well as the more unusual vegetables that you tend to see only on restaurant plates like black and watermelon radishes, white baby turnips, golden beetroots which are very hard to grow and are susceptible to humidity and a sudden change of weather.

Black radish

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“Why are we sitting in the naughty corner?” I ask Joan Holloway taking a seat at a banquette table in the corner of the L’étoile restaurant and putting my bag down.

“Manu is hosting a children’s birthday in the back” she answers smiling.

“Are you making that up?” I ask laughing.

“No I’m not! Besides…” she says leaning in and whispering “Who has a children’s party at L’etoile?” Joan Holloway asks.

Mirroring her I lean forward and whisper “And where do you go for the next birthday?!”

We’re busy chatting and the waiter who seems quite new or nervous seems to want to come over a few times to check whether we are ready to order. We dither between choosing foods suitable for a semi diet or full blown gluttony and end up choosing something in between.

Bread and butter

The bread and butter are superb although I’d expect no less . The baguette is crunchy on the outside and the butter lovely and creamy. Interestingly no bread plates or knives are given. an absence of bread plates are an expectation at a French bistro or brasserie but not usually at restaurants so we chalk it up to forgetfulness or new waiter nerves.

Boudin de Saint Jacques, Bisque de Crustaches $22

The scallop sausage is said to be one of their most popular dishes and cutting into it we can see why. It’s rich, absolutely so and we puncture through the thin skin and find the texture of the soft scallop is soft and buttery, almost like a scallop sashimi. It is paired with sauteed spinach and sits in a shallow pool of crustacean bisque which is well balanced (I find some bisques just too strong). We agree that it is best mopped up with the bread.

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The XXX wall

There is one thing that all of my close friends have in common. They are fabulous people – gifted people even and when my friends meet my other friends the common remark is “Your friends are really nice!” It’s absolutely true, I hand pick all of them and they are the brightest and sweetest cherries in the box. One of them is The Second Wife who upon learning that it was my birthday put her hand up to organise a food trivia night for my birthday. Yes any invitee to a birthday party or Halloween or even dinner at our house will know that after the food and drinks are eaten, games are aplenty whether it be Murder in The Dark for Halloween, Sardines for Christmas or simply Charades for after a dinner party.

I racked my brain trying to think of places to hold my birthday. I wanted it to be central to everyone to get to and when I saw LL Wine and Dine’s website and the magical words “Private Room” coupled with the fact that there wasn’t a minimum spend to have the room I looked further. The private room was all red which was very Twin Peaks-I could easily imagine the dwarf and giant hanging out there (which really was my prerequisite for choosing a room). Plus it was also a former adult bookstore so what’s not to intrigue? But beyond that, the building has such a fascinating history that it was the perfect choice for a birthday.

See that little room up there? That’s where they discovered the p*rn stash!

The front of the restaurant was originally where the adult book store sat but in the back, through one of the 650kg secret steel hydraulic doors was a steel walled room gambling establishment and swingers room where the real action happened. It took 2 weeks to strip all of the steel out once they moved in. Whilst they knew of it’s provenance as an adult book store, the owners didn’t realise what else lay hidden until it came to renovating it. The unexpected prize? A steel fronted secret attic space hiding bags and bags of XXX magazines and tapes!

Where the hydraulic door would have slid back to lead patrons into the inner sanctum aka the gambling club and swingers club

In fact the room that we have booked has some hooks from the ceiling that were used to suspend swings and harnesses from and plastered and painted over is the door that leads to the tank stream underground passageway where patrons could slip out unnoticed. The police used to watch the place with interest from the front where they would see men disappear into the store but never come out and it was through these secret doorways that patrons would leave. It’s a modern day maze a la Alice (admittedly though, a children’s book wouldn’t be set in Kings Cross). And you know I wouldn’t choose just anywhere to have a birthday right?

Where the owner of the adult book store would have sat in the booth looking out onto the store

So with the venue decided we chose the Sapphire $50 banquet menu so that it wouldn’t be too expensive for everyone and put down the $10 per person deposit. I have a slight obsession with the TV series Twin Peaks and David Lynch and it was only when we sent out the invitations that I realised how few of my friends had seen the series. Ah well! After sending off the guest list to the The Second Wife, she and her husband Gravy Beard weaved their magic from there and put together a list of questions including trivia questions and blind tastings. People would split up into teams of three and the prize? Well that’s a secret!

I decided this year as it was so close to Mother’s Day and I was busy baking for that that I wouldn’t make my own cake. So I called upon Buppa from Buppa’s Bakehouse to make it for me. The Bakehouse has sadly now closed but I knew that she was doing private orders and I knew that she would think up something quirky and fun with a Twin Peaks theme.

The table of vegetables

Mr NQN and I arrived that evening at 7:30pm. I do love dining out in this area but parking is a beast so we had to cab it (warning for drivers, there is only one parking station for the whole Potts Point/Kings Cross area and scarce 1 hour parking everywhere!). We walk downstairs to the private area. It’s dark, in fact very dark so please excuse the shots as we were in the darkest part of the restaurant right down at the bottom with just two lamps lighting up the whole area and we forgot to bring the flash. Mr NQN set up a time lapse camera that would take a photo of the room every 10 seconds and The Second Wife set up her little table of unusual vegetables.

Prawn and pork wontons

The staff that were looking after us introduced themselves and asked us what order we would like things to do done in and we decided to start on the entrees and then have the games before and after the mains. The food started to come out quickly and we started with bowls of delicious slippery prawn and pork wontons that sit deep in a bowl filled with chilli oil and aged dark vinegar sauce, topped with thin slices of silk egg which is like a thin scrambled egg, pickled mustard and shallots. The wontons are good with a flavoursome filling and a smooth, slippery thin pastry. Miss America leans over and confesses “Do you know I haven’t touched a dumpling since our dumpling escapade?”

LL san choy bau

This was many of our favourite-the san choy bau here is quite different from the ones that you may find with pieces of duck and water chestnut. This one is filled with minced chicken with a spicy lime dressing and it has toasted pine nuts and croutons to give it an even greater crunch to match the crunchy iceberg lettuce.

Crispy tofu

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