The Brasserie By Philippe Mouchel - Part 2

Riverside at Crown
Ph: (03) 9292 7808

The lunch deal at The Brasserie is really good value. I had a great meal last time and was looking forward to going again.

A catchup lunch with Visal was the perfect opportunity. We arrived near 12pm and were one of the first customers. We were seated near the high ceiling window overlooking the Yarra, a great view. The weather outside went from sunny to dark skies with 45 degree raindrops and blistering wind all while we were deciding what to order. The glass windows came out of their groove at the bottom and were starting to wobble a lot. After some struggles by the waiters, they temporarily wedged some wooden blocks while moving us to the next table.

All that drama was handled smoothly by the wait staff and provided a bit of excitement for us. Here's Visal sitting calmly before the literal storm where the window looked like it might cave in on her.


I talked Visal into going three courses, and despite her initial fears that she couldn't finish everything, she did. For entrees, she got the Pan Seared Scallops with ginger, chives, cous cous, vegetables and Argan oil. Visal loved it, and I had food envy.


My entree of Spanner Crab Cocktail with eggplante compote and avocado cream sounded better on paper. The crab was nice and there was lots of it, but eggplant compote wasn't good at all and there was so much avocado cream that it was really sickening.


For mains, Visal choose the Gold Band Snapper with eringi mushrom and crushed potatoes. She liked it but said it wasn't amazing. This time it was her turn to have food envy.


My mains of Lamb Rump with capsicum and fennel, olive and anchovy jus was so moist and delicious.


The dish that stole the show though, was one of the side dish. The Oven-roasted vegetables consisted of eggplant and capsicum and was good. But the Sauteed mushrooms with Parisienne gnocchi was amazing. The gnocchi was so addictive and went perfectly with the mushroom.


To finish off the meal, we had the Dessert Tasting Plate. There were many elements to each, all of it very good. There were sorbets, rum baba, panna cotta, semifreddo, chocolate fondants and macarons. A great decadent way to end a great meal.


The atmosphere in The Brasserie is always calm and of casual elegance. Visal and I had a great chat over a very relaxed meal. Service was impeccable and faultless, as it should be at top end restaurant.

Overall Rating: 17/20, A great atmosphere and good, with the lunch special fantastic value for money.

Scores: 1-9: Unacceptable, don't bother. 10-11: Just OK,some shortcomings. 12: Fair. 13: Getting there. 14: Recommended. 15: Good. 16: Really good. 17: Truly excellent. 18: An outstanding experience. 19-20:Approaching perfection, Victoria's best.

Shine

74-76 Kingsway
Glen Waverley 3150
Ph: (03) 9561 9888

Shine is one of those cafe/restaurant that do every type of cuisine imaginable....badly. I've been to it quite a few times (not of my choosing) and never has it been good. The menu reads well but the reality is overprice badly done food.

As an example, here's some dishes we had at our last visit.

Steak and Mash, how can you go wrong right. Well, you go wrong by cooking a medium steak until it's well done and so chewy that it's barely eatable. And who needs that big a pile of mash?


Seafood Linguini is a gluggy and used a lot of frozen seafood. And who needs a massive ring of oil around the plate?


Moroccan Lamb is drier than sand.


Chicken Parma has this huge bubbly mess of cheese on the top. Again, too much.


Chicken and Avocado on bread sounded safe. Wrong. Chicken pieces are a bit dry but still edible. Avocado, well, it's just avocado, who can you ruin that. Bread is ok too. So what went wrong. well, they stick it all together and pour this disgusting sweet chilli sauce thing over it. Where on the menu does it say there is a sweet chilli sauce.


My opinion is stay away from this place if possible. Service is flaky at best, food is not good and overpriced.

Overall Rating: 9/20, If you really can't find anywhere else, eat here as the food is just edible.

Scores: 1-9: Unacceptable, don't bother. 10-11: Just OK,some shortcomings. 12: Fair. 13: Getting there. 14: Recommended. 15: Good. 16: Really good. 17: Truly excellent. 18: An outstanding experience. 19-20:Approaching perfection, Victoria's best.

Maris

15 Glenferrie Road
Malvern VIC 3144
Phone (03) 9500 0665


A work mate had suggested Maris as a place I should try. So, I decided to give it a try. It's a fine dining restaurant on Glenferrie road just off Prince Highway. It seems a bit out of place on that end of Glenferrie road but we turned up to find a packed restaurant with most of the customers dressed nicely in their smart casual wear. I was wearing my Hawks polo. Compare and constrast.

The restaurant has a very cosy feel, as it is narrow and long in length. The interior decor consists of electic art such as wooden toys, tapestry and legs of ham hanging in the window. I liked it all and felt really comfortable.

We were seated, the wine was poured, and then we waited, and waited. Finally, after about 10 minutes, we waved a waiter down and asked for the menu. Here is Sey Veng, Jo and I waiting for the menu and snapping some photos.


Before the entrees, we received some deliciously warm bread served in a cute straw basket shaped like a chicken. Offers for more bread were accepted but quickly forgotten and we never received more bread.

An amuse bouche started the meal. But again, this was a while ago and I've since forgotten what it was completely. I only remember that it was good and did indeed cleanse the palate.

The first entree to share was a Prawn and Calamari dish with pasta with tomato, rocket and native lime foam. This contrast with the tanginess of the lime worked well with the seafood. I really liked this dish.


The second entree was Grilled Quail with barley, soft duck egg and shimeji mushroom. The creaminess of the duck egg enveloped the quail meat and gave it a beautiful silky feel. I wasn't completely sold on the barley.


For mains, Jo got the Yellow Tail Kingfish with crispy Spanish ham, baby leeks, almond and mushrooms. It definitely looked spectacular with the foam and flower petals, but the taste was all a bit strange and didn't work.


Kin got the King George Whiting with braised rice with chorizo and cuttlefish and mussel sauce. The whiting were cooked to perfection and beautiful. But again, the accompanying flavours didn't work well with the fish.


Sey Veng got the Slow Cooked Beef with Swiss chard, olive oil and Parmesan. This dish really worked with the beef so soft and falling apart. The simpler accompany flavours helped compliment the beef instead of overpowering it.


The best mains would be the Free Range Suckling Pig with smokey potato cream and pickled vegetables that I chose. The skin on the pig was crisp without being chewy. The meat was tender and gelatinous in places. The accompanying potato was great with the pork. The pickled vegetables provided the occasional sour contrast. A great dish overall.


Between mains, we waited for them to ask us about desserts. Twenty minutes later and still nothing. We were happy to sit there and talk, but not a single waiter walked over to ask us if we wanted desserts. The waiter who cleared the table didn't ask, our waitress for the night didn't ask, nothing. Finally we asked for the dessert menu, twice.

Before desserts, we got another palate cleanser, which I would have happily had as dessert. It was a Peach Ice Cream with Passionfruit Curd and Passionfruit Pulp. It would seriously have to be one of the best sweet offerings I've had all year. The flavours and textures just worked so amazingly well, and it was only suppose to be a palate cleanser.

Hence, my expectations for dessert was extremely high, and it did not disappoint. The trio of desserts we shared definitely has been the best offering from any restaurant this year so far.

So firstly, there was the Vin Santo Pannacotta with macerated figs and apricots with almond biscuit and ice cream. The texture of the pannacotta was a nice soft smooth feel, with a hint of the wine. The figs and apricots gave the occasional fruity bite, and the ice cream complemented with pannacotta. A fantastic dish.


The Quince and Amaretti Crumble with Moscato jelly, peach ice cream and vanilla was another triumph. Quince crumbles are always good, but this one was amazingly good. The amaretti crumble already lifts the quince, but when you ate it all with the moscato jelly and peach ice cream, the contrast in textures, heat and flavours makes it a near perfect dessert.


Lastly, the Valrhona Chocolate Roll with chocolate ice cream, rum soaked prunes and bitter sweet orange again had me going mmmmm a lot. You can't go too wrong with chocolate, but the rum in the prunes again gave it another dimension. And then to contrast it with the rather bitter orange, genius I say.


Well, how to sum up. It was such a mix bag. I love the ambience and that nice cosy feel. The service was rather shocking. The wait staff looked really confused and were running all over the place. There didn't seem to be a head waiter controlling things.

As for the food, on the whole it was really good. Apart from a couple of the fish mains, everything else was excellent. The desserts were a clear standout for me, but I am more partial to sweet foods. I would go back anyday of the week to eat the suckling pig and desserts again. I would forgive the service as well just because the food was so damn good. This place could easily be a two hat restaurant if only the service was better.

Price wise, the cost is very fair I believe. Mains are around the $30 mark and entrees and desserts between $15 - $18.


Overall Rating: 16/20, Food was spectacular, but service let things down.

Scores: 1-9: Unacceptable, don't bother. 10-11: Just OK,some shortcomings. 12: Fair. 13: Getting there. 14: Recommended. 15: Good. 16: Really good. 17: Truly excellent. 18: An outstanding experience. 19-20:Approaching perfection, Victoria's best.

Dinner Party - Movida Theme

After some discussions with fellow food bloggers, Sarah and Duncan, I settled on the menu for the dinner party. I decided to attempt some recipes from my Movida cookbook, the only savoury cookbook I own. Note to self, never attempt recipes for the first time to dinner guests.

From left, Duncan, Sandra, Sarah, Jo and Kin.


Kin brought over some freshly shucked oysters for entree. Seeing as three of six people didn't eat oysters, that left double as much for the rest of us oyster fiends, score! I like my oysters with just lemon and tobasco when I don't have time to make a proper sauce.


Mains was the Pyrenese Chicken from the Movida Cookbook. It sounded easy when I read the ingredients, but I didn't read through to the end of the recipe of I would have seen how many hours of chopping and cooking it involved. Unlike a cooking show where I have assistants to chop everything and pre cook the sauce for me, this meant a very labourious afternoon. Having cursed my way through all the chopping the two hours of cooking the sauce, the final result was amazing and I would make it again. The chicken was moist and the flavours of the vegetable and paprika really shone through. The crusty bits at the top of the baking pan were delicious.



I made some roasted potatoes (they were seriously good, you gotta rough them up after boiling them) and a salad of spinach, fetta, pine nuts and a balsamic vinaigrette.


Here's the plated dish, not too bad if I say so myself.


Dessert was the Movida Chocolate Pudding. It is seriously rich, utilising a stack of chocolate for only a few serves. I overcooked them a bit and the centre wasn't as molten as I wanted, but still decadently delicious.


Pyrenese Chicken with Paprika, Tomato and Capsicum

INGREDIENTS
1.6 kg chicken cut into pieces (I used whole chicken thighs)
2 tbsp thyme leaves, roughly chopped
fine sea salt
185 ml olive oil
2 brown onions, finely diced
4 bay leaves
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
4 red capsicums, seeded, membrane removed and finely diced
6 large tomatoes, peeled and chopped (should have just used canned to make it all faster as Duncan suggested)
500 ml dry white wine (I used a Sauvignon Blanc)
3 tbsp Spanish sweet paprika

METHOD
1) Season chicken with thyme, few pinches of sea salt, 1/2 tsp ground black pepper. Cover and refrigerate until ready.

2) To make chilindron sauce, heat 60 ml of olive oil over medium high heat. Sautee onions, bay leaves and garlic for about 5 minutes until onion is soft. Reduce to low medium heat.

3) Add capsicum, cover and cook for 40 minutes stirring occasionally until capsicum is soft. Add tomato, cover and cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

4) Add the white wine and cook for 10 minutes. Add about 1 litre of hot water and increase to high heat. Once water is boiling, reduce to low heat, add paprika and cook sauce gently for 30 minutes. The mixture should still be quite liquid.

5) Meanwhile, preheat oven to 200 deg C.

6) Heat remaining olive oil in large heavy saucepan over high heat. Add some chicken pieces and brown skin. Add pinch of salt. After 4 minutes, turn over and salt other side. Cook for further 4 minutes. Brown all chicken pieces.

7) Put chicken in large roasting pan, leaving a bit of space between pieces. Cover chicken with chilindron sauce to come just to the top of the chicken.

8) Gently bake in oven for 1 - 1.5 hours. As it cooks, the sauce will evaporate, creating a dark crusty top on the chicken. The chicken is ready when the thigh flesh comes away easily from the bone.


Hot Ganache Chocolate Pudding

INGREDIENTS
unsalted butter, softened, to brush
plain flour, to dust
350 g dark couverture chocolate
4 eggs, room temperature
125 ml pouring (12-15%) cream
50 g unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into 1 cm cubes

METHOD
1) Using a pastry brush, grease six 125 ml ramekins with butter and lightly dust with flour. Refrigerate until ready to use.

2) Melt chocolate over double boiler.

3) While chocolate is melting, whisk eggs gently. Bring cream to the boil over medium heat. Once boiled, remove from heat and let cool for 5 minutes.

4) When chocolate has melted, add several tablespoons to eat and gently mix. Slowly add remaining chocolate. Add the cream and gently whisk. Add the unsalted butter and mix until all melted.

5) Cover mixture with cling film and let refrigerate for 1 hour, or until soft fudge consistency.

6) Spoon into chilled ramekins, filling almost to top. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

7) Preheat oven to 200 deg C.

8) Bake ramekins on tray for 15 minutes. When done the edges will be cracked and the centre of the top will be just soft and domed shaped, and just unset.

9) Remove from oven and let cool for 3 minutes. Turn out of ramekins and serve with ice cream.

Red Hill Wineries

Red Hill has some really nice Wineries, so when we decided on a day out, I suggested Red Hill.

It was a lovely relaxing day just driving from winery to winery sampling wines. I too suffer the same disease that affects many other bloggers, the "I have a huge backlog of posts and I can't quite seem to remember the details of the event anymore." So I present to you a post about all the wineries I visited that day at Red Hill but I can't tell you which ones they were. Here are a couple of photos, you can try and deduce where they are yourselves.






The only winery I remember was Hickinbotham because we ate lunch there. After a mondegreen moment where John thought the winery was called Higginbottom and some fruitless Google searching, we finally found Hickinbotham.

Hickinbotham supposedly do German food, although it was more a mish mash of things.

John and Mia both got very non German dishes of spaghetti Marinara and Lasagne. Dennis, who never appears in any photos also got the Spaghetti. The spaghetti and lasagne were fairly good.






I decided on the Bratwurst with Sauerkraut. The bratwurst was pretty standard and not bad, the sauerkraut not so good.


Desserts were a piping hot Apple Crumble and Peach Strudel. Both done well and very comforting on a rather cold day.




Finally, we dropped off at a quince farm where the smell was intoxicating. I bought quite a few kilos of the yellow gems.


Overall, an enjoyable day roaming around Red Hill. I must keep better notes in future or write the posts faster before the bloggers disease strikes and I can't remember any details.

Masterchef - Top 14 to 10

So I'm well and truly back on the Masterchef bandwagon and watching it closely. I still hate the group voted eliminations, but at least that's only ever second elimination.

From my last post where Julia won the celebrity cook off, it's back to more challenges.

A supermarket cook off where the losing team had to vote someone off saw Josh go. His supposed "kiddie mafia" aliance with Kate and Sam were not sitting so well with some people, hence he was made the scapegoat and voted off. I don't think it was the right decision but again, it's what the team voted.

An invention challenge to cook steaks saw Tom, Sam and Trevor in the bottom three making Sticky Date Pudding, the classic 80's dish. Supposedly their dishes were all so good that none of them deserved to be voted off. Rubbish! The show's just dragging out for another week because Nic left the show himself. If I was one of the other contestants who were safe that week, I would really feel peeved off. But such is the nature of reality TV that you have to expect some curve balls. At least they haven't bought back voted off contestants yet.

I'm really loving the celebrity cook offs. At first I thought it was a real gimmick to advertise various restaurants but all the celebrities have been really helpful to the contestants and taught them things. The fact that Julia won just makes it even more interesting. Chris did a good job again Alex Herbert, as did Justine against Guy Grossi.

A lost challenge at the Sydney Show saw team captain Kate voted off, voted herself off. How silly is that. I know there's such a thing as being humble, but isn't this taking it too far. If I was in her shoes, there would have been no doubt in my mind, I would have voted Sandra off. I would be there to learn more and to hopefully win the whole competition.

After winning the mystery box challenge with a delicious looking lemon cupcake, Julie stuffs up the invention challenge badly and finds herself in the bottom three with Aaron and Sandra. When the challenge dish is revealed to be paella, well, you would think that only two people had a chance of being voted off as Sandra is of Spanish heritage. Finally, Aaron's luck ran out and he was gone. I don't think he has done a really good dish all show and it was probably time for him to go.

Trevor suffered the same fate as many team captains whose team lost the challenges. Again, as I reiterate, the team captain is not self volunteered and carries all responsibility but no reward. Trevor's choice to use bait as part of the dish backfired badly and he was voted off.

Finally, the Top 10 cook off was between Poh, Chris, Julie and Tom as they did the worse in the pairs challenge. I can't believe how Poh managed to pull it out. She looked gone for all money and about to give up. Whereas the other three looked to be going great and yet faltered at the last step. Making a croquembouche is tough when you have two days, as Sarah wrote about. To never do it before and have to complete it in over 2 hours is unbelievably tough. The fact that they all managed to at least present something was very commendable. Unfortunately, Tom's efforts were deemed the worse and he was gone.

It's starting to get to the business end of the show. Unlike Idol or So You Think You can Dance, I haven't really gotten behind anyone. They all seem to be nice people but no one has really captured me yet. If I had to put money on someone, I'd obviously put my money on Julie as she is learning so much each day at Peter Evan's restaurant. I also think Chris has a good chance. Two dark horses could be Poh and Lucas. With the pressure constantly increasing, we'll start to see who can handle being a chef and who can't.

A Picture Tells A Thousand Words

A picture tells a thousand words...sometimes. If only it wasn't slightly corked.

Masterchef - Top 17, Top 16, Top 15

Ok, after my last rant about Masterchef, you would probably think I stopped watching right, wrong. I'm still hooked to the show. There are some elements that are fantastic and keep drawing me back.

I forgot to mention the departure of Nic in the last post, so I've made up for it this post and I'll just call him the top 17 evictee. Nic's departure has to be one of the all time classics in reality TV. Has there been a weaker explanation of why someone has to leave. It's not like he's on a deserted island freezing to death and starving and hence wants off the island. Nic couldn't bear to be away from his wife after only one week.
"
The eviction shows where they have the "mystery box", the "invention challenge" and then a "pressure test" is great. That's how every week's eviction should work, a pressure test where each contestant does the same dish. Michelle's efforts were slightly worse and hence she had to leave.

One of the highlights of the week was the cook off between Julia and Peter Evans. I, along with the rest of the contestants got the biggest shock when Julia won. I never thought a contestant would ever win. I thought the only good bit about that segment was seeing a top chef in action. Who would ever have guessed that an amateur (with a time advantage, but still a dish they have never cooked) could beat the pro at his own dish. And Evans' humble acceptance of defeat and offering to mentor Julia was reality TV at it's most gracious.

The team challenge was another eye opener. It shows what you can really do when forced. Despite having bought some strange ingredients, Kate's team pulled it off since they had to think outside the box. The subsequent vote off saw the other team vote off Josh. Again, I hate this element of the show as I think most of the others voted off Josh since they saw him in an alliance with Kate and Sam.

Lastly, the week finished with a masterclass. This part of the show I just love. I learnt lots about cooking squid and making a souffle. I'm going to give the souffle a go, having never attempted one because it looked so damn hard. But with those expert tips, I'm hoping my souffle will rise high and proud.

Masterchef - Top 19 and Top 18, Pathetic

As Dave "Hughesy" Hughes would say, "I'm angryyyyyyyy!" Masterchef is really pissing me off. Just when I thought it had turned a corner after the Top 20 round and got back to basics, it's done another about turn and totally pissed me off.

So after the Top 20 round where the losing team voted one of their members out and got me really mad, the Top 19 round was back to the basics of cooking, with the contestant with the worse dish being kicked out. Linda was eliminated because her Tarte Tartin was the worse dish. Fair enough, this is a cooking show.

But what have they gone and done again, got the teams to vote each other out. The Top 18 elimination is so fucking ridiculous, I wanted to hurl something at the TV. Brent, who had just won the invention challenge and done a commendable job again Martin Boetz from Longrain, was voted out when his team lost.

Firstly, Brent didn't chose to be captain, he was elected by the show. At least on The Apprentice, the contestants nominate themselves to be captain knowing the risk and possible reward. If their team should win, they are free from elimination for the next round should they lose. However, in Masterchef, the winning captain gets nothing more than the rest of the team. But should they lose, the captain is obviously the biggest target and scapegoat.

The reasons given by Sam, Kate, Michelle and Trevor were pathetic. Being captain means making decisions, but it doesn't mean the captain can control every single aspect of everything. The team need to back him up too and execute the actions. If you have all agreed on a set of actions, when you then lose, you can't retrospectively say that it was the wrong fucking decision. What a bunch of wankers. Brent was clearly starting to do well in the competition and could cook, whereas someone like Aaron has not produced any good dishes yet.

This has really put me off Masterchef and as many other food bloggers have said, Channel Ten has once again dug into the bottom of the barrel and tried to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

Masterchef - Top 20

As I wrote previously, despite the problems I thought existed with Masterchef, I would continue to watch. Thankfully, it's gotten a lot better after the audition phase and I'm really getting into it. I'm even learning a few things food wise, bonus.

However, the latest eviction of one of the top 20 has irked me greatly. Neil from At My Table has already written about it, but I have to weigh in as well. What the hell is the show doing by making the contestants vote each other out. It has descended into a Survivor style contest. The focus now won't be on the food, but on building alliances and sabotaging each other.

I thought Masterchef would be better than that and rely on the food aspect to draw an audience. But, they have descended into reality TV staple of people attacking each other to get on top. I agree with Neil that the judges should be the ones voting people out. Isn't that what they're there for. Otherwise I don't see them serving much purpose. There is already a host on the show, why do we need another three people standing around trying to look serious. The show needs to change this around so that the focus is back on the contestants trying to learn as much about food and cooking and become the "Masterchef", not the "Master Manipulator".