Category Archives: Sydney – East

Eating adventures in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney

From The Farm To A Dinner Plate At Concrete Blonde

concrete blonde kings cross

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.

concrete blonde kings cross

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.

concrete blonde kings cross

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.

concrete blonde kings cross

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.

concrete blonde kings cross

concrete blonde kings cross

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.

concrete blonde kings cross

French breakfast radishes

concrete blonde kings cross

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.

concrete blonde kings cross

Black radish

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Time To Vino, Darlinghurst

time to vino darlinghurst

The LPs on this wall all have a wine theme to the name

I’m having a deju vu moment. I look around and my mind appears to be spinning and my surroundings melting. I remember I used to dine in this space way back when it was a Hyatt Kingsgate hotel and it used to be a Japanese restaurant. In fact I have just walked past where 20 years ago my friend Miss America and I used to sit down and have chawanmushi and sushi way back when it was somewhat of a new cuisine. Yet 20 years later it is nothing like it used to be. Now it is a wine bar called Time To Vino run by sommelier and owner Clint Hillery who was the recent winner of the Electrolux Young Restaurateur of the Year award.

time to vino darlinghurst

She’s a bottle opener if you can believe it!

Part of the Diamant hotel for whom they also provide the room service meals it is a place full of quirky knick knacks, many with the wine theme such as this buxom lass who in her spare time is a bottle opener. Clint tells us that they have a lot of fun scouring ebay for pieces and the waiter is kind enough to bring me a little nesting table to put my camera on, the table being another ebay purchase!

time to vino darlinghurst

Wine corks a plenty everywhere!

The bar snacks are a comforting cut above with bangers and mash and a glass of wine for $20 or a Sunday roast with pudding for $30. And last but not least is the legendary toastie which changes regularly. Darren tells us that the toastie’s fillings change regularly and can feature fillings such as duck rillette and truffles.

time to vino darlinghurst

Every Thursday night for the rest of the year they will also hold a wine and charcuterie plate tasting with 5 courses of nibbly style food and matching wines for $60.  Their point of difference is that they do their charcuterie in house including an incredible venison morcilla (blood sausage) using New Zealand venison. While we are standing around a divine guinea fowl pate and cassis jelly eclairs are passed around along with a glass of NV Louis Roederer “Brut Premier” champagne. The guinea fowl livers used have a mild, less gamey and lovely flavour.

time to vino darlinghurst

time to vino darlinghurst

Wild Abalone with pork sausage served with 2010 Robert Oatley Riesling (Great Southern WA)

The wild abalone and pork sausage is a fresh sausage and Clint explains that the sausage only has a short life of one or two days because they cannot use a preservative as that will turn the abalone tough. The oyster and Swiss brown mushrooms are cooked in an abalone sauce which is made from the off cuts of abalone and the mushrooms have a slightly Asian flavour while the abalone and pork sausage pieces are packed full of flavour and to top it all off is a baton of crunchy, airy, lacey pork crackling. And the wine it has to be said is an excellent match. I’m not a wine writer, not would I ever claim to be but one thing that everyone has in common is knowing when wines match and this one softens the acidity in the wine and makes it smoother.

time to vino darlinghurst

Burrawong Chicken Liver Parfait, poached quail egg, walnut remoulade and pickled mushrooms served with a 2009 Robert Oatley Chardonnay (Margaret River, WA)

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L’étoile, Paddington

l'etoile paddington

“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?!”

l'etoile paddington

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.

l'etoile paddington

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.

l'etoile paddington

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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Fei Jai, Potts Point

fei jai potts point

As Chinese parents who bring up children in English speaking countries are wont to do, my parents gave my sister and I Chinese names as well as English ones. My name translated from Chinese into English means “Little Pretty” (although my mother would often sniff that I had more in common with my English name Lorraine which means “warrior” according to the book she used). Not so fortunate was my sister when she asked my father what her Chinese name meant.

“It means ‘Little Homely’” he said.

My father is not usually known for his diplomacy or tact. My mother horrified at his translation scrambled to find a less offensive descriptor and translated it to mean “Little Quiet” before giving up and admitting that my grandfather named me and my grandmother named my sister and that there wasn’t really a word for her name. “I just thought it sounded nice in Chinese” she offered weakly.

fei jai potts point

And so I knew that it was with both my parents that we had to visit Fei Jei meaning ‘Fat Boy’ in Chinese. Recommended to me by a friend of mine Woolloomooloo resident Petrina formerly at Donna Hay, she was melodically swooning over the omelette said to be lighter than air. Fei Jai is the “fat child” or more accurately small compact moodily lit child of Peter Lew whose uncle owns Flower Drum in Melbourne and Nicole Holloway formerly of Hugo’s. And my Cantonese father who prefers to eat Chinese only food would no doubt have his own opinion of the food. It sits on Challis Avenue or as well call it the street of no restaurant names (aka too subtle signage) and we only find it because we know that it is at number 31.

fei jai potts point

Scallop and prawn dim sim $15

OK they’re not the cheapest little morsels at $15 for four but they are a cut above the rest. The filling for the siu mai is chock full of plump and juicy Hervey Bay scallops and prawns. And before you know it, your siu mai is gone and you don’t have another to replace it which makes one a bit sad. Between each and every course they clear and replace our plates which secretly pleases my mother who leans over and whispers “I’m very impressed by that” but Mr NQN and I feel that we don’t need such frequent plate changing picturing the towers of plates in the smallish kitchen so we ask to keep our plates.

fei jai potts point

Crab omelette $16

The star dish, the crab egg white omelette is fluffy and light and creamy with delicate pieces of blue swimmer crab, and not just tiny threads of crab, some big enough to notice that they’re there and it’s made from freshly picked crab. There’s a small bowl of black pepper to sprinkle on top of the omelette which brings it all together beautifully.

fei jai potts point

Char Siu pancakes $18

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Twin Peaks, Food Trivia & A Birthday Party, LL Wine And Dine, Potts Point

ll wine and dine

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.

ll wine and dine

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.

ll wine and dine

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!

ll wine and dine

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? ;)

ll wine and dine

ll wine and dine

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! ;)

ll wine and dine

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.

ll wine and dine

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 wine and dine

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.

ll wine and dine

Crispy tofu

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