Petersham Charcoal Chicken, Petersham

After Seinfeld, the term “soup nazi” has become part of the urban vernacular and when researching a place for the best Portuguese Charcoal Chicken in Sydney, this place along with that very term popped up again and again. My blogging buddy Christie from Fig & Cherry is a regular here and if it’s good enough for her, it’s good enough for me. Researching it on eatability I read this amusing warning from member, mooooo__. “As long as you know their system and don’t faff when ordering/deciding though, all should be good. Don’t look certain senior staff in the eyes, some say she can steal your soul if you do. Even better don’t say anything to her except “thanks”. She appreciates not having to converse with you.” With an intro like that, I was trepidatious at best. Luckily I was unwittingly armed with a secret weapon. Eight month old baby Annabel.

The Secret Weapon

The queue is long and there’s another woman in the line behind us. “I thought now was going to be a better time to come here but it’s just as busy” she says to us. I have to agree as the nights where we’ve driven past this place, we’ve witnessed lines and crowds spilling out of the doorway onto the street of hungry people eager to get their lateish night fix of charcoal chicken (and apparently fat reduced as the neon sign says).

The takeaway items are very reasonably priced but as we’re not local we want to sit down so we are shown a table by the lady that eatability readers fear. Did I mention my secret weapon? Teena’s daughter Annabel proceeds to melt everyone’s hearts with her smile and the staff couldn’t be nicer. The woman in question stops by to coo at her and tells us with nothing but a beaming smile on her face that she has a 7 month old granddaughter. I was initially a bit fearful of asking for something from the takeaway menu to eat in but given her friendliness I do and it’s absolutely fine. *Phew!*

1/2 chicken $7 and cod croquette $2 (front) and chips $6.50 (behind)

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July 17th, 2009 by Not Quite Nigella

Chestnut Gnocchi And The Impending End of Masterchef

Now that we’re reaching the final stages of Masterchef Australia it’s getting both exciting and sad. Sad because I know that there will be a gaping hole at 7pm where I used to rush to make dinner so that we could eat it while watching Masterchef (we tried eating dinner earlier but we’d just get hungry again at 7pm) and exciting because I want to know who will win.

I decided to make this, not for any allegiance to the ousted contestant Andre but because I had chestnut flour in my cupboard that remained untouched for some time. I tend to buy things on the premise that they’re unusual and therefore I’m unlikely to encounter them again but they end up filling my cupboards.  I have to admit, Andre was not my favourite contestant. I didn’t understand his complete blindness to other cuisines apart from Italian and his seeming ineptitude at producing anything that wasn’t of Italian extraction. And oddly enough, Italian food didn’t always love him back. Case in point: his strawberry risotto. He’d provide a chuckle or two though and I recall his remark about meeting chef Emmanuel Stroobant. “I knew he was hard core and when he was standing next to me, I felt him draining my power”. As reality raver said, this was not a comment from a 4 year old boy or Superman and it appeared spoken in complete earnestness.

Although it was panned for its retro presentation, Andre’s chestnut gnocchi dish got a good review for taste but sadly there was no recipe on the Masterchef website so I set about trying to make my own. I had to give it a few tries as this was my first go at making chestnut gnocchi.

The resulting gnocchi is gorgeous – lightly smoky with the unmistakable flavour of chestnuts. The colour of it is a light grey brown which I have to admit isn’t the most photogenic shade, particularly when paired with a cream sauce. However, all fears are allayed once you taste it. The gnocchi is delicate and given a sweet punctuation with the addition of roasted chestnuts and a dash of saltiness from the reggiano.  I would have loved to have carried the chestnut theme with some chestnut mushrooms but the local store was out of them. The gnocchi is also very versatile and I’ve since fried the cooked, cold gnocchi the day after along with some Italian sausage and a drizzle of chili oil and it’s the perfect 10 minute dinner.

As for that yawning hole at 7pm what else do we have to do? Might I suggest either making some recipes or adopting an obsure hobby like falconry, re-anacting wars (why anyone would want to do this is beyond me), bug racing, collecting rope, duct tape art or my personal favourite, collecting Halloween decorations.

So tell me Dear Reader, now that Justine is out, who do you think will win Masterchef? Chris, Julie or Poh? And who do you want to win out of the three?

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July 16th, 2009 by Not Quite Nigella

Sushi Suma, Surry Hills & a giveaway!

Sashimi porn-yes.

I should start off with a warning about portions at Sushi Suma. Only visit here if you are starving, and even then only go if you’ve taken the precautionary measures and arranged for an emergency stomach compartment or a switch with your dessert tank. Servings here are legendarily huge and service, well it’s an in and out, stuff-em-full sort of place. Four Supermodels could probably share a dinner box and I am including those annoying Supermodels that keep telling us “Oh yes I hardly ever diet! I eat as much as I want”.

This evening we are supposed to meet Rose and Ronald at 6.30pm but we are 15 minutes late. Rose and Ronald have been kicked off their table downstairs in the restaurant and have been asked to wait upstairs in the bar area. We are given a copy of the menu and we order the items upstairs with the no nonsense man with the keypad. In order to expedite turnover, orders are taken upstairs and when the food and table are ready, diners are guided downstairs. Despite there being a bar and having a captive, waiting (and thirsty) audience, there is no bar service as the no nonsense man (we assume the owner) is busy corralling diners. Luckily we are waiting less than 10 minutes when we are shown downstairs. It’s a curious layout, the dining area is small and the kitchen is comparatively huge – larger than the dining space. As we sit down, with the super tightly laid out tables, Rose comments about how loud it is.

Complimentary Appetiser

This vermicelli noodle salad is lightly seasoned with a sweet, vinegary taste.

Complimentary Agedashi Tofu

The complimentary agedashi tofu is a nice surprise as everyone receives one. It’s delicious and one of the better ones I’ve had with a perfectly seasoned sauce (I often find the sauce isn’t flavoursome enough) but this is just right.

Kaiso Salad $8.80

We’re given our Kaiso salad and the size gives us an indication of things to come. It’s huge with a mound of shredded cabbage and thick and thin seaweed. The seaweed itself isn’t highly seasoned or flavoured but the salad has a light dressing over it and a scattering of sesame seeds.

Cream Croquette with crab meat $6.80

The items I went crazy for in Tokyo were Cream Croquettes. These are small croquettes filled with the creamiest potato. I can’t really see or taste any crab meat but I do see a couple of corn kernels.

Other diner’s plates are set down next to us and we are aghast at how big they are. The Katsu meal at the table next to us had 8 huge pieces of katsu and their Tempura had a large variety of food. We see why the sizes are legendary.

Sushi Deluxe $16.80

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July 15th, 2009 by Not Quite Nigella

Religieuse au Cafe : I choux choux choux you!

Why is that when you’re in the middle of piping or beating, does the phone ring or the courier buzz your apartment? This happened to me 3 times while I was making these. The first time happened when I was beating the mixture by hand and the second and third time happened when I was piping the choux and filling the piping bag.

The recipe comes from Adriano Zumbo, Sydney’s very own pastry god who recently appeared on Masterchef Australia twice, the first time was for a Croquembouche challenge. Croquembouches are something I intend to conquer one day – and I do look upon it as conquering as it’s as tall and intimidating as a mountain as evidenced by the contestant’s versions which more resembled leaning towers of Pisa.

These delicacies called a Religieuse due to the resemblance to a Nun. I take a slightly different interpretation of the name due to the amount of uncharacteristic praying I did when I a) beat the mix and b) put them in the oven and c) when I took them out of the oven to realise that yes indeed they worked! There is a certain amount of praying to the pastry gods that occurs for these (and macarons). I took these to Gravy Beard’s birthday as the theme was bring food and drink from a country and I chose France. I was delighted to hear The Second Wife and Naomi utter “Fat Nuns!” when they saw it. I know they’re not a patch on Laduree’s Religieuse but I was comforted that they could see the resemblance.

Anyway, given the timing Happy Bastille Day! Bastille Day was always something that my High School celebrated. I’m not quite sure why as we weren’t a French school. Perhaps it was the chance to eat Pain au Chocolat and croissants for brunch.

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July 14th, 2009 by Not Quite Nigella

10 Things You Should Know About Food Bloggers

The species Foodus Bloggerus is a peculiar creature. I know, because I feel distinctly peculiar most times.  We march to the beat of our own drum (or more accurately the sound of food sizzling). When most people are enjoying their food, we’re taking close ups of it. So to understand this misunderstood creature, allow me to reveal 10 things you should know about this unusual creature, should you ever encounter us in the wild.

1. Be prepared to eat early. Like a reverse Vampire, we love the light as more light means better photos. Eating dinner at 4pm? Sure, no problem, the light will be good then. Similarly, you’ll also find us seated near the window more often than not as the light is better there and we only use Flash in extreme circumstances or in closed blogger-friendly company.

2. We’re shy and hate to be stared at, especially while we are taking photos. However if it’s something exciting, we retreat into a haze and snap away uncaring. That’s called the “Paparazzi Brangelina moment”, when we descend into a frenzy of snapping.

3. Most people react to romantic lighting positively. Not the food blogger. We will utter things such as “crap, not this moody, romantic lighting again. What about my photos!”. Because as you know, it’s all about the photos ;)

4. We love to share food. The equation is straightforward: the more food shared, the more food sampled and the more we can write about.

Hmm, how do I get the piece back in without them noticing?

5. If invited somewhere, we’ll usually bring something as it gives us an excuse to make something for our blog. However this is not catch free. A cake might have a slice taken out of it for photographic reasons although it may be put back into place. Try not to stare and pretend the piece wasn’t cut. Please. We feel weird enough as it is.

6. We love to choose where to eat out. Please let us choose – food is our life and we will painstakingly research places. We may also send through copious links and print out menus. It’s a compulsion. Just take them smiling and back away if you need to. Oh and trust us, the place may look weird/seedy but the food will be good.

Food-the ultimate gift

7. If you ever want to give a gift, give food. Something unusual, hard to get or exotic is wonderful. Or something fresh from your garden. We are easy to please. I swear I thought I wanted Choos until I got a roast rib of pork as a gift.

8. Dinner out with us in a restaurant is an experience. It can either go well and can be an interesting experience or it can go badly. Embarrassing sometimes if you aren’t used to the excessive photo taking. But it’s never boring. Badly is when a chef comes out to yell at us for taking photos or something similar. Good is when you get an extra dessert or when the chef comes out to say hello or explain how they’ve made something.

Yes we took pictures of the bread and butter…

9. If you dine with us, you’ll learn the art of patience. Yes we even want to photograph the bread and butter. Food is better a bit colder right? Or so we’d like to convince you.

10. It’s hard once you get into the habit, for us to not take photos of the food that we eat. I’ve only eaten out once and not taken a photo. And it hurt. Similarly, when I was watching an episode of Mad Men the other week, I was so engrossed in watching Peggy having dinner with her date and their drinks arrived and I wondered why she didn’t whip out a camera before drinking it and so my hand reached out to get my camera. Yes, it really did.

Tell me Dear Reader, do you have any other keen observations, either as a food blogger or an observer of one?

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July 13th, 2009 by Not Quite Nigella