Adelaide – Flying Visit

Guest reviewer (JB maybe?) made a flying visit to watch Cadel, Lance, Robbie, Stuie etc. (that would be the Tour DownUnder – ed) After a day chasing the peleton refuelling was a priority.

PARWANA – Afghan Restaurant – 124b Henley Beach Road Torrensville 08 8443 9001

Wikipedia advises that Parwana is an Urdu/Hindi word that refers to an obsessed lover – literally it is a term for a moth attracted to a flame. This moth was attracted twice –first for a quiet dinner on a Wednesday night with Adelaide-based Sis and second for food after Sunday afternoon drinks at the Union Hotel (City) and the Wheatsheaf Hotel (Thebarton) with Sis, Bro and SisiL.

Located between a funeral parlour, a hairdresser and an African Internet café, Parwana is a short taxi ride from the centre of Adelaide on the Western side of town (towards the airport). (gee – sounds promising – ed)

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Recently I was invited to dinner at the Grand Hyatt Collins Kitchen by nuffnang, the blog advertising people.  It was nice to get together with some bloggers I know well, some I’m getting to know, and some I’ve not met before.  It didn’t take long for us to be engrossed in a conversation about food (der!).   Somehow the Hyatt gang managed to shut us up for a few minutes and we moved from the bar to the restaurant proper.

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I’ve visited The Estelle numerous times now dear reader, but I have to admit, not only because of my dedication and commitment to bringing you the full and balanced reviews of the best establishments in town. No, I must admit, the coffee is awfully good, and it’s only 10mins from my place, and a visit can also easily fit into the Saturday morning chore circuit. I’m hooked…

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I’ve been splurging on cookbooks lately – the strong Aussie dollar has been making it too difficult to resist. The Momofuku Cook book (by David Chang and Peter Meehan) arrived after Christmas and has been inspiring me non-structurally for a few weeks. By that I mean I haven’t sat down, read through a recipe, gone shopping and produced. More I’ve been looking and ready and realising that I’ve got many of those ingredients in the cupboard, so have improvised based on photos and some quick reading.

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Sunday arvo in the city and we had paused in our shopping for a cold iced coffee (Journal and not bad, not too sweet, good espresso flavour). I checked my twitter stream and read that Old Town Kopitiam’s new outpost in QV was open for business. It’s a bit dull bite-wise in the CBD this time of year so this was good news. We weren’t really *extremely* hungry – but a snack is always in order.

“Arty” shot of the back wall – decorated with condensed & evaporated milk cans, huge Horlicks cans, Milo cans and the like.

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Every time we go to Donnini’s I ask myself why we don’t get here more often. I guess we take them for granted, but are thankful for their commitment to good food on a street that has a mistaken reputation for good food.

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Day after Boxing Day BBQ – we’re getting more confident with the BabyQ and felt that we could give some of the fabulous steak from Largo a decent send off. I grabbed some rump steaks from Simon that had been dry-aged on the bone since 7th November and we put together some salads. So easy – so delicious.

I adapted this recipe from an episode of “The Best in Australia” that I caught the other night, Best Vegetarian Dinner.

6 or 8 roma tomatoes, halved, seasoned with salt and pepper
2 – 3 red onions peeled, quartered
2 tablespoons sugar
Balsamic vinegar (or use vin cotto and leave out sugar)
1 x 440g can chick peas
bunch of coriander
Persian Feta

Oil a roasting dish and add tomatoes and onions. Sprinkle with sugar Roast for 1.5 hours on 120 degrees centigrade.
Stir through the drained and rinsed chick peas and pop back in the oven for a few minutes.
Roughly chop coriander and stir through the tomato and onion mix and add balsamic to taste.
Sprinkle on a tablespoon or two of feta.
Serve warm with dressing

Dressing:
200ml plain yogurt (goat or sheep’s milk is great)
mustard seeds
cumin

Toast mustard and cumin seeds in a dry frypan
Crush and stir through yogurt with salt and pepper to taste.
Let sit at least 30 mins before serving.

On The Best – the served this on top of dukka crusted eggplant slices. Meh to the eggplant.

On my way to the Vic Markets this morning I was in dire need of a coffee. This hot weather has made it hard for me to keep my caffeine intake at the required level. Yesterday I grabbed an affogato from Cavallini on Queens Parade. I was too late for a “Toby Coffee”, but I figured it wouldn’t really matter as it would be splashed over their good vanilla icecream. It didn’t, it was lovely and it did the job.

I’ll even admit that over the past week, as we have welcomed Spring (goddammit!) with 6 or so days at or over 30 degrees C, I have been craving an Espresso Frappacino from Starbucks. But not enough to walk to one of the two surviving stores on Swanston Street to indulge. Moccona have released a new range of little or no milk cold coffees in a bottle, but I haven’t seen them close to work as yet. What do you do for a caffeine hit in the hot weather? I can’t deal with the usual iced coffee we Aussies get – too milky, not enough caffeine. I’ll have a lovely Liaison coffee in the morning, but what to do for my mid-morning hit? at 30+ degrees?

So … that’s the long story, I was looking for a decent coffee this morning to make up for it. I detoured to Seven Seeds to buy one, and thought I would have some breakfast as well.

I grab a spot on the communal table and check out the menu:-

• Bircher Muesli? nope. C’mon it’s Sunday!
• French Toast with banana, butterscotch sauce and peanut brittle? Sounds lovely but .. it’s breakfast! Even I can’t stomach anything that sweet for breakfast
• Pastries? ho hum
• Fruit Toast (ho-er hum .. ho-ho hum? Greater Hum)
• Sour Dough bread served with bits…salmon? don’t eat it; hummous tomato, olive oil and dukkah? sounds like lunch; African nutella and molasses, sounds like a diabetic coma
• Toasties – already written about them; not my idea of nice, way too much bread

No-one has come to take my order yet – I’m still not even sure after 5 or 6 visits if they do – no one has ever approached me before I’ve walked up to the counter to order. Can someone tell me if they do table service?

I approach the counter and order two lattes to take away – both for me as they only have a regular size.

*sigh*

The coffee is really lovely, deep and rich and satisfying, but the food? I just don’t get it. What am i missing out on? Dench bread is OK – but it is my local so it’s not “exotic” for me. But the slices are way too thick in my opinion and I just don’t want anything that carbo loaded ever really.

So tell me what I’m missing….

For a bit of a special treat, we decided to visit Embrasse, which has been “on the list” for a while now, but you know, Mugaritz and Paris got in the way! (darn them!).

I’ve never been a real fan of the site Embrasse occupies in Drummond street, not now, and not when it was Mrs Jones, nor 312. It’s a bit of a strange room being square rather than rectangular, it feels like it’s been cut off – and that there is more fun happening “out the back”. I think it’s a difficult size to create some “buzz” as well, although not funereal as it has been described, it was a bit introspective the day we were there. Eventually a loud party of four walk-ins filled the table in the middle of the room and gave all us couples something other than each other to look at.

At any rate, we were there for the food. Nicolas Poelaert was recently named our Young Chef of the Year, and I was a bit surprised to find some quite “mature” food on our plates. What do I mean? I mean subtle flavours where the produce shines, not the technique, and the guts to have a plate of vegetables as a main course. We wavered a bit about trying the degustation or not, but decided to go al la carte.

Arty shot of the amuse bouche.

(Sorry, I think it’s time for a tripod)

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North Melbourne Primary School now hosts a “Farmers Market” on the first Sunday of the month. I missed out on the last Abbotsford Convent market, so was kinda hankering for a market morning – and the boy lives walking distance to this one, so I was quite looking forward to it.

I do hope this market picks up a bit, it wasn’t really what I would consider “up to speed” yet. I really didn’t like being accosted by GetUp! on my way there… go inside and have a stall and I’ll come see you if I want to folks.

The grounds of the school are quite well set up for the market, and to sit and have a coffee and a bit of breakfast, but the coffee was pretty ordinary, made with Coles UHT milk which was a HUGE step down from Schulz’s Organic Fresh Milk as we get at Abbotsford and Collingwood, and the beans were quite a mild roast.

The collection of stalls was a bit eccentric, but as it was the first market I can only hope it picks up. They were also quite sparse.

There was:
Ross Creek Garlic (who sold Garlic)
Honey
Lamadre Bakery
Olive Branch Preserves
Pud for All Seasons
A loose leaf tea seller
Little Creek Cattle Company/Killara Rise Lamb (from NSW!)
A Gozleme and turkish bread seller
Lockton Farm Gourmet Sausages (Chicken, Cheese and Asparagus sausages? Gourmet Pizza Sausages? Madras Curry and Cheese Sausages? I could go on but…urgh)
Marie’s Natural Herbs ‘n’ Stuff
Meredith Cheese
Flower seller
A Chicken shop
Someone selling stonefruit I think
A Market Gardener
Picanha Premium Beef
and perhaps a couple more?

There weren’t a lot of names on the stalls, and I missed the little bios that a lot of the Farmers put up at other more established markets. I used inverted commas in the first paragraph as there didn’t seem to be a lot of farmers – more of the value added stuff which isn’t what I look for at these markets.

But there was some good and some truly weird…

Now the dumpling stall took my fancy – I like dumplings! But I was disappointed to see only dim sims, hear the stall holder say ” well you can steam them, but they are much better deep fried” and then read the name of the stall..Wun Hung Lo? They’re kidding right? Seriously not impressed with the attempt at humour I’m afraid.

Then there was the scarf lady…seeing as it was more than 30 degrees yesterday that seemed really incongruous. Good thing it drizzled this morning I guess.

Then there was these guys – Michael and Jo, Red Bean coffee beans.

They were the suppliers of the beans in the aforementioned bland coffee, they asked me how it was, and I told them it was pretty bland, I blamed the milk – they blamed the roast the coffee makers had chosen (which they called a “girlie” roast). They sold me some Brazilian rainforest alliance beans. These two are ex-construction industry who have taken up roasting their own beans to make the kind of coffee they like to drink. I liked them, they were chatty (always a good sign at a market) and passionate about what they were doing. (You need a sign for that marque though lads!)

So…not a great start I’m afraid for this market, but hopefully things will improve with a better mix of stalls. Or maybe they will pitch themselves at the “Sunday Shopper”, buying those little indulgences. I certainly couldn’t do my weekly shop here – or even buy ingredients for a whole meal. But I’ll be back to see how they are progressing.

North Melbourne Farmers’ Market
1st Sunday every month (except January – second Sunday)
North Melbourne Primary School
210 Errol Street
North Melbourne
Inseason Markets