I don’t quite know what it is about me and Greek food but I adore it. Greek yogurt is my favourite type of yogurt, Halloumi is one of my favourite cheese and Taramosalata is also one of my favourite dips and don’t even get me started on Dolmades or Baklava which are a complete addiction for me. So this Friday night I am anxious. I am crossing from the North Shore to the Inner West during a heinously busy Friday night peak hour. My father was at the helm and we were running frightfully late – not helped by the traffic and my father’s unfamiliarity with the North and Inner West. When I finally get there I am greeted by Davis Tsirekas’s smiling face from the window of the busy kitchen. “Hello darling! Welcome!” he says. He lets me know that they’ve thoughtfully held the hot food (thanks guys!) until I got there.
Perama’s Head Chef: David Tsirekas
It’s a Tweetup arranged by Fridley and consists of hand picked bloggers and a few other tweeters. He and David have planned a special banquet for us tonight. For $50 we get the regular banquet menu plus all wine as well as a range of other courses. David will just keeping cooking things and sending them out to us until we tell him to stop (which is just music to my ears and stomach).
Course 1: Dips (Taramasalata, Tzatziki, Splt Pea). Pic by Betty’s Bites
Warned by many to pace myself for the onslaught of courses to come, I help myself to just a little bit of dip although they are all delicious, particularly the Taramasalata and the creamy Tzatziki which tops all other tzatzikis. David strains the already strained yogurt again and balances it with olive oil which gives it that creamy texture. There’s also smoked eggplant, split pea dip and olive paste which I didn’t get to try.
Course 2:Greek Salad
I have had far too many bad Greek salads in my life, so much so that I don’t usually order them. This is an exception with the creamy feta, spanish onion, fat olives and tomatoes telling you why the salad is so popular.
Course 3:Pickled octopus
Course 4: Pickled mushrooms
Course 5: Pickled cabbage
They’re all lovely pickles but the octopus has to be my favourite. But I didn’t eat too many of the pickles because I knew there was more to come and this was just the start.
Course 6: Zucchini fritters
The moist zucchini fritters signal a start to the hot dishes and the excitement to come.
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June 23, 2009
by Not Quite Nigella
Christmas in May? If you know me, you know that I’m a believer in Christmas at any time (why limit yourself to once a year?) and the chance to dine at Restaurant Atelier in Glebe and eat Pork is pretty much like a trifecta when you combine it with Christmas. Restaurant Atelier is located in a brick cottage on busy Glebe Point Road and is run by the gorgeously personable couple Bernadette at the front of house and Darren Templeman as the chef who is protege of Bruno Loubet. Darren is the perfect choice to host the evening – as a Yorkshire boy certainly knows his way around a pig. Thanks to the amazing Mel from Fooderati and Stewart from Whiteworks, a gaggle of us bloggers are dining alongside other food industry notables.
Bernadette
We start off with Pork Neck Rillette, Cornichon, Green Beans served in a Witlof leaf. The rillette is deliciously soft and melt in the mouth, subtly perfumed and flavoured with cognac and wine and perfectly paired with witlof. Wines are provided by the Piggs Peake winery – no coincidence that with a name like that they caught the attention of the Australian Pork people but as Mitch from Australian Pork explains, they found that they loved the wine beyond merely the name which was a serendipitous occurrence.
The pink elephant in the room is of course the Swine Flu which tonight’s news report says is at a critical stage in Australia where we were warned that it was about to spreading very fast here with the number of reported patients at over 60. Of course what was clearly told to us from the very beginning (and to much relief) is that eating pork does not give you Swine Flu. In fact the current Swine Flu or H1N1 is passed from human to human rather than pig to human. *Phew* Bacon, ham and pork, come to mama!
Clockwise from left: Grilled pickled loin of pork with celeriac remoulade, Honey glazed pork hock with roasted apples and Pulled Pork Neck salad with Crystal Bay Prawns
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May 28, 2009
by Not Quite Nigella
Zumbo’s Bedroom Bookshelf
So the story goes, I was in Adriano Zumbo’s bedroom so I took a snap of his bookshelf but more on that later. And what was I doing at his house? Getting a preview of his new collection: 40 Days and Nights in Paris (due out May 23rd) for my birthday! For a food blogger, this is as close to the best birthday gift you could ever get. “You’re the first to see the whole collection” he says “even the guys in the kitchen have only seen two of them” and I suppress an internal squeal. Oh yes, birthdays are a good thing indeed.
Kitchen bookshelf
Zumbo recently returned from two months in the City of Lights which included attending the Coupe du Monde de la Patisserie (World Pastry Cup) and working at Pierre Herme, hence the collection’s name, and he came home eager to get back into his own kitchen and get started on his new collection. Speaking of his kitchen, the minute I walk through the door, I know I’m in the home of a chef. It’s a huge, gorgeously spacious kitchen with a massive island and one of those heavy duty restaurant kitchen faucets. I spy a bookshelf full of cookbooks (including Nigella’s “How to be a Domestic Goddess”) and when I ask if I can take a photo of them, he says “Let me show you the real bookshelf”. This is the one he spoke about in his interview with me which is in his bedroom. It’s packed with some amazing cookbooks of the professional calibre from the Libarie Gourmande in Paris.
Zumbo’s home kitchen
As for the cakes, let me present a preview of them without any further ado. As the cakes remain unnamed at this stage, if you’d like to suggest some names for them, please leave a comment as Adriano will be checking this page. Who knows, he might get inspiration from your suggestions! He said that he loved reading the comments from all of you in his interview so get your thinking caps on and name away! 
Cake #1
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May 13, 2009
by Not Quite Nigella
At the risk of quoting Austin Powers in Goldmember, when I see the smiling face of the man at Pho Bac Hai Duong, the first thing that one notices is, aside from his smile, is the mole on his face and the good 2-3 inches of hair growing from it. In Vietnam, it is said to be unlucky to trim the hair from a mole and having hairy mole is said to be good luck – indeed the longer the hair, the luckier you are. And with a full restaurant every night, perhaps he is.
The famous Pho Tai
The Pho is where we are feeling lucky, and the broth is said to be amongst the best in Sydney with the flavour deep reaching with a dizzying array of spices and herbs with star anise featuring prominently. Tonight we’re dining with The Second Wife, Gravy Beard, Tess, Naomi and Francesca. And the most popular vote is for their signature dish, Pho Tai – the raw beef noodle soup. The menu is full of the usual delicious Vietnamese offerings like Crispy Pancakes, Bun and Pho but there are also offerings like a Sea Snail Noodle Soup (I so wanted to order this but I chickened out going for something more familiar and recommended to me). Surprisingly, there’s also an offering for Pho with Free Range Chicken for $10.
Milk and Soda with egg yolk $3.50
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May 6, 2009
by Not Quite Nigella
If I ever were in a position to give a restaurant an award for Best Name it would have to be Posh Spice in Newtown. For I am speaking about a restaurant, not the emaciated fashionista ex Spice Girl perched on increasingly vertiginous shoes who only has a fleeting familiarity with actual food.
The entrance to Posh Spice advertises Bollywood Dancing on Friday and Saturday nights and the colourful fuchsia walls and staircase lead to a very nicely outfitted restaurant – one that is adorned with plasma screens playing Bollywood videos, wooden carvings and all things chicly Indian.
The other Posh Spice. She wasn’t there by the way.
Cameron, my husband and I are dining using the Eatability two for one main discount (now finished but keep an eye out for it should it appear again) where feeding two famished men fresh from sailing all day is paramount. We order four mains-the three restaurant specialties, as well as the Spinach & Cheese Naan and the Peshwari Naan and a selection of sides for $6.50 (Katchumber: chopped tomato and onion salad; mango chutney and Raita: cucumber and yogurt).
Aishwarya Rai mocktail $6.50
Given the intriguing names in the cocktail menu like Sex in Mumbai, Slumdog Margarita and Sachin Ballbanger, I start with the Aishwarya Rai, a ginger ale and grenadine mocktail. My husband and Cameron go for the Salty Lassis ($4 each). They’re similar to the Ayran drinks and not too bad although my husband admits he prefers Mango Lassis.
Complimentary appetisers
Our complimentary appetisers are made of deep fried bread, spread with three types of cheese (a mint cheese and two others), battered and deep friend.
Gosht Mirch Ka Salan: Lamb $19
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April 28, 2009
by Not Quite Nigella
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