lifeasdaddy

My best meals ever.

Some were great because of the food.

Some were great because of the time, place and people.

Some were great because I was introduced to a new culinary experience.

I was inspired to write about my best meals ever by Leonard Lopate's interview with James Oseland, Jane Stern and Michael Stern of Saveur Magazine.

Chicken with orange sauce.

My cousin Julie had been married the previous day to then-husband Phil. I guess I was about 9 years old. They were flying out of Melbourne to their honeymoon.  In those days it was unusual to take an international honeymoon.  Most of the extended family, including my parents and I went to the airport to see them off and it was decided by the adults to have lunch at the fancy restaurant at Tullamarine Airport.

There were lots of things on the menu which seemed unusual to me and I finally decided on Chicken Maryland with orange sauce. When my meal arrived I recall my wonder that there was a sauce other than tomato, that there was a sauce you could make from a fruit and how deliciously piquant citrus was with chicken.

Kill a lamb one day, eat it roasted the next.

My Uncle and Aunt ran a dairy farm and I was a regular childhood visitor. There was also a small flock of sheep on the farm which were reared for eating. One day when I was 12 or so it was time for me to see how the sheep was killed and butchered.  One of the lambs was tied up and killed by having its throat slit, then my Uncle went through the butchering process until it was a bare carcass.  The carcass was covered in a cotton bag and hung overnight in the big tree.  The next morning after milking-time the lamb was brought down and my Uncle cut it up.  Roast leg of fresh lamb for dinner.  No illusions about where the food comes from. It was delicious with a fresh mint sauce.

 Chateau de Troja, Prague.

June. Prague summer. It was at a corporate function for dinner. First there was a tour through the Baroque chateau, including the magnificently frescoed stables. Then, on an evening of beautiful weather, down the sculpted staircase to the parterre where tables were set for about 200 people.  We sat at a table with some Finns who could not speak any English.  I can't remember what we ate, but I remember eating it in the garden of a palace.

 

.(photo by Guillaume Cattiaux. Used with his kind permission)

 

More details about the Chateau de Troja here.

 

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Victor's Cafe 52, New York.

We were on our way to New York.  A friend recommended Victor's - which specialises in Cuban food.  Never had Cuban food before.  It was July.  New York is HOT in July.  The streets smell as the garbage rots.  I telephoned for a reservation and the restaurateur told me that the air conditioning was not working and the restaurant would therefore be hot, but if we still wanted to come we would be very welcome.  Seemed fair enough to me.  If it was too hot, we could leave. Walked past Gallagher's Steak House and the window of their cold larder filled with gigantic cuts of beef. Got to Victor's.  The door was propped open and large electric fans circulated the air.  Our friend told us to order Mohitos and Champagne empanadas.

Had my first Mohito. Tick the box. But there was no sign of Champagne empanadas on the menu. We asked, we got. They were exquisite.

Street view of Victor's.

Le Café Marly at Le Louvre.

Here, position is everything.

(Photo by Kwong Yee Cheng on Flickr under a CC licence)

 

When you sit down with your lovely wife at Café Marly , in the Richelieu wing of The Louvre you look out at I.M. Pei's pyramids. You sit on stylishly covered chairs and are attended by waiters who speak English. You drink an expensive, though excellent cup of coffee and take a pastry. You are not dreaming. You are a lucky man.

 

I have a few more memorable meals to write about.  Soon.

 

Eating out in Ko'Olina. Roy's restaurant.

When I was in Hawaii a couple of years ago I took note of the very good reviews that Roy's restaurants were getting.  Hawaiin fusion cuisine. The word was pretty good, but I was a bit skeptical.  How good could a chain restaurant be?  So we did not  go.

A few weeks ago we returned to Hawaii for a holiday and stayed at Ko'Olina.  We ran into famous Hawaiian singer and ukelele player Moon Kahele.  He told us that he plays at Roy's on Wednesday nights and encourged us to go. The  Roy's restaurant there is located at the Ko'Olina Golf Club just across the road from where we were staying. So we decided to give it a try.

The restaurant is approached via the golf club's roadway, so it's through manicured gardens.  The restaurant is comprised of two main seating areas;  one indoors, and one outdoors, although roofed.  We were switfly seated at a table large enough for our party of 4 adults and 3 children.  

Our server was a woman who I rate as the best soft-upselling restaurant waitress I've ever seen.  She sized up our table and guided us towards menu choices which would not only be pleasing to us, but in the American way be a little bit more than we actually needed to eat and drink.  In the nicest possible way she maximised the check for the restaurant by suggestive selling and attentive service.

If I ran a restaurant I would want her to train my wait team.

We sat in the outdoor section, which here meant that the roof is enough to withstand a tropical storm but there are no walls.  Open to the air, the Island breezes, and fragrance from the tropical gardens.

I didn't take notes about the food, but I can tell you that the fried sushi roll was wonderful.  The roll was about 5cm in diameter, and about 15cm long cut into slices, perfect for sharing around the table which is how all enjoyed it.  In the style of cooking it reminded both Gabrielle and I of Tetsuya's famed crusted ocean trout.  Not in taste nor texture of course - but in the sensibility which informed it.

With 33 restaurants to run it seems unlikely that Roy Yamaguchi was at the stove himself that night, so the achievement of excellence is a managaerial credit too.

The other dish I'll comment on was the steak I had.  I rarely cook beef steak for myself at home so sometimes I like to order it out.  This was a fillet mignon, perhaps the best beef steak I've ever had.  The chef had mastered the skill of minimalism.  Not too much intervention, a plain  steak full of flavour perfectly cooked.  This restaurant does not quote beef marbling scores like Australian restaurants do, but this would have been very high.  

Even if the food had not been so good it could have been forgiven on the strength of the atmosphere.  A nice night, in open air surroundings with a fine entertainer singing crowd pleasing covers.  

As part of the pitch our server gave for the menu was that there are "Roy's Classics" on the menu which are there every night (these comprised about 20% of the menu) and the rest being daily dishes based upon fresh market ingredients.

When we returned two night later, this proved to be true with the a la carte menu being 80% different.

If you're near a Roy's, you should go.

Far, far better than expected.

Dolphin dumplings on the restaurant menu. A protected cetacean in Australia?

All whales, dolphins and porpoises are protected out to the 200 nautical mile Commonwealth waters limit.

So you just have to kind of wonder how Dolphin Dumplings appeared on the menu last night:

So I don't think you can buy dolphin at the Sydney Fish Market.  I suppose it could be imported, but I'm reasonably sure it would be a restricted import.

Phoebe Damrosch talks about working in a top class restaurant.

Her talk touches on class in America, the theatre of service, customers, personal interaction, the nature of celebrity, and other stuff.

"The dessert that day was the deconstructed Snicker's bar."

The customer's take on it:  "This is better than pot."

View the video here.

Very interesting.

She has also writen a book about it, Service Included.

Gettin' ready for Christmas

For the past couple of years we have made a gingerbread house for our family's children to enjoy at Christmas luncheon and this year is no exception.  Edward has also been very keen to make a Nativity Scene, to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas.

The actual gingerbread components were purchased in a kit from Ikea. 

Gabrielle made some icing from pure icing sugar which doubles as glue to stick the pre-fabricated components together. 

The white icing also gives a snow like effect.  Although snow has no physical relationship to the Christmas period here in Australia owing to 25 December falling in the middle of our summer.  However due to the British, European and North American influence on our culture the visual and psychological association of snow with Christmas is surprisingly strong.  Besides, it gives us something with which to stick the confectionery to the gingerbread.

It's a little hard to see in these photographs but the finishing touch is a small chocolate Santa Claus peeping out of the chimney.

The finished product is something that kids love, and it looks festive too.

Next, Gabrille and Ed made a Nativity scene.

These wooden clothes pegs become the figures.  A shoe box becomes the stables.

The manger is made from some light cardboard cut up and shaped into a box.

The clothes pegs have a piece of shiny pipe-cleaner like things wrapped around them to make arms and a couple of pieces of tinsel stuck on to make a beard for Joseph. 

Clothes are made from some scrap material.

To make a smaller figure for baby Jesus the bottom of one of the pegs is cut off to size.  His bedding is made from cotton wool, as is his blanket.

The gabled roof of the stables is made from an inverted vee shaped piece of cardboard topped off with the guiding star.

Some spiked leaves from a palm frond make up some greenery around the stables.

C'est voila.

Ago restaurant - 377 Greenwich Street

The text of this post has been deleted. by me

Uexpectedly by me, this blog post has been featured highly within Google searches for "Ago Restaurant" on several nations' google search pages.

Since this blog post merely featured a link to a review that was unfavourable to the restaurant, and as I have not eaten at the restaurant myself, I consider it unfair to the resturant's owners and staff to leave that information here with such a high Google rank.

As much as I like a high Google rank, I can't let it be at the detriment of people who are probably hard working.

If I ever eat there myself, I'll put my own review here.

Edward sees his first circus show under the Big Top.

You never forget your first circus.

Today we took Ed to the Big Top at St. Ives showgrounds to see Weber's Circus.

This is the real deal.  The arena is releatively small - which ensures that every seat has a great view of the action, although some may be slightly obscured by the solumns holding up the tent.

The local government doesn't permit the use of animals, but in every other respect there is a full range of top circus acts.  Solo trapeze, aerial steel ring, clowns (non-scary), contortionist, tightrope walk, juggling, dancers, aerial silk act, multiple hula hoops, and an honest to goodness wheel of death.

Edward's attention was captured for the nearly 2-hour show. 

Something he will never forget.

He told me the popcorn was good too.

The circus strikes the big top tomorrow, and then goes to give shows at St. Mary's and Liverpool.  See if you can get along there.  Tell them Bob sent you.

The big gun of Mosman

A couple of days ago we met our friends Alana, Sean and young Luca at a cafe on a headland above Mosman.  It's an amazing park with an amazing view. 

Set on a site which was once an artillery emplacement used to protect Sydney and its harbour it has been refurbished to provide studios for artists and a setting for a sculpture park.

As a homage to the site's military past there is also a preserved inoperable 6-inch Mark VII coastal gun on display.  According to historical surveys, the two World War II era Mark VII guns were moved from this site to South Head so this one must have been retrieved for dramatic effect.

In this picture at left we see the 6-inch Mark VII gun which was manufactured by the venerable British armourer Vickers.  The "6-inch" statistic relates to the internal diameter of the gun barrel, and hence the external diameter of the projectile shell.  The shell weighed around 100 pounds (48 kg) and the range was about 15 kilometres.

This photograph above gives a better idea of the gun's tactical field of fire, although this was not the exact position of the gun emplacement.  Sydney heads, the entrance to Sydney Harbour can be seen in the distance, North head at left, South Head at right.

Edward has seen the big gun before, but it still acted like a magnet to him.  Not so much because he has an interest in things military like his Dad, but because it is just so big.  And because it now has a fence around it - just making it so much more attractive to a young boy.

Ed also took some time out from military history to give vent to his artistic side and appreciate some sculpture.  Not so much from the aesthetic aspect as the athletic.

It turns out Fortune Cookies originated in Japan

Or so says Yasuko Nakamachi in this New York Times piece by Jennifer 8. Lee.

Cool middle name, 8, isn't it?

lifeasdaddy - The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra plays VB Stubbies.

Victoria Bitter beer has had some great advertisements over the years, and this one is no exception, with the Melbourne Sympony Orchestra playing their version of the VB theme music.  The theme was actually composed by then newcomer Elmer Bernstein for the original soundtrack of the classic film The Magnificent Seven (1960).  Bernstein was nominated for an Oscar, but did not win.

Great!

[ Thanks to my friend Darren Waterworth for the tip ]