Chula Bar

Tonight I had dinner at an Indian restaurant in Hammersmith called Chula Bar.

First things first is it's bipolar bar or restaurant identity, but inside it has all the hallmarks of a proper restaurant so no idea why they decided to call it Chula Bar.
I wont dwell or go into the food too much as this is about something more important for mine.

I had vegetable samosa, pronounced sah-moo-sah apparently not sar-mar-sar as we with our harsh a's like to do. For main I had balti king prawns with rice and garlic naan.
The prawns were overcooked and had the rubbery consistency of badly done calamari but the balti sauce was quite good. The naan bread was near cold, which meant it had probably been cooked several hours before. That in itself isn't too bad as naan done properly is going to take a while to cook, but if you must pre-cook things at least make sure they're hot going out.

The big epiphany though was the entree. Yes that's right Americans entree, the dish the rest of the world accepts as the first. The word itself even means entrance or beginning, perhaps that's why the US is so overweight, they've already had a massive appetizer then another huge course and they've only just begun!

My entree was as I said vegetable samosas, again very ho hum, not much morethan a glorified curry puff rather than a proper samosa. However as I sat there eating them there was a good dose of heat. That's when it hit me; the real purpose of a starter is to start the meal. I had Indian because I was hankering for a good decent spicy curry, and this samosa was hitting my palate with chilli gettting it ready for what should've been the main attraction to come.

So always in the quest for a decent feed you can always learn something new, even out of a mediocre meal something good can come. Previously I always thought of an entree as another opportunity to show off culinary skill and perhaps should be somewhat tied to the rest of the meal, now I see it should be part of a greater symphony.

Wagamama Earls Court

For those not familiar with it Wagamama is a japanese style ramen bar. Think noodles, communal tables, Asahi beer and you'd be on the right track.
Last time I was in London I remember eating at Wagamama several times and loving their Chicken Katsu Curry. Shortly after I moved back to Australia I saw Wagamama had spawned there as well, so in order to recapture some of the memories I figured I'd head to the one in St.Kilda.
Sadly though it wasn't quite like I remembered it.

Seeing as I was back in London I decided Wagamama would be the site of tonight's dining experience, to see if it really was better or was I just romanticizing the memory.

After consulting the website, the nearest one to me was in Earl's Court which is just a short tube journey. You exit the underground onto Earls Court Road turn left and keep walking for about 5 minutes. On the way I passed something called Gourmet Burger Kitchen. Will definitely be checking that out.

First impression was just as I remember. Now I've never been to the Earl's Court one but that's what's good about the chain restaurants, the same thing people like to slag. You can go to any of them and be pretty confident of what you'll get.
So if they're all a chain and all much of a muchness why is the St.Kilda Wagamama not like the London ones? I believe there's a very good reason and bear with me on this one it could get a little tangential and philosophical.

What I've noticed since being back in London, after the proliferation of the EU, is the number of eastern europeans working in anything traditionally seen as a "menial" job. This confirms a long held belief of mine in order for a country to be successful and grow they need access to cheap labour.
The socialist do gooders would have us believe it's exploitation and everyone should be bank managers or brain surgeons, trouble is someone has to do the menial jobs. So if you're new to a country and looking to learn the language, waiting tables seems like a good place to meet a load of people and practice.
Also judging by the friendly smiling staff they didn't seem to think they were being opressed either. Or if they were they were doing a very good job at faking enjoyment, something a lot of overpaid plate carrying students in Oz would do well to learn.

This leads nicely to another long held belief, that is contrary to what a lot of the neuvo rockstar chefs would have you believe, and that's food is pretty simple and you have to be doing something seriosuly wrong it to fuck it up.
I once had cold leftover pizza, made me sick as a dog the whole flight from Sydney to LA. Thing is though I still remember it tasting very good.

So if food is hard to get wrong even when it makes you violently ill what's the difference between a good meal and a bad one? Well for mine a good meal is more than just the food. It's the whole service and a lot of time the state of mind as well. This I think fundamentally the problem with trying to transplant a successful business somewhere else, it doesn't always work.

Oh yeah and I did have the chicken katsu and yes it was as good as I remember, plus I had some exquisite duck gyoza as well. It was everything I remember Wagamama was, so not sure what the one in St.Kilda is doing wrong, but I'm pretty sure it's not the food.

Eating around the world

It's been a while since a post but that's mainly because I haven't been out and about eating.

That should change however because I'm in London working for the next few weeks. So that means a lot more choice plus I basically have to eat out every night.
I'm not going to go crazy though and tell you about every meal I have, just the ones of note.

The first one of note would cover just about 1/3rd of the meals I'd have anyway as I want to talk about something I love, and love to criticise - hotel breakfasts.

Over the years I've been fortunate enough to do a bit of travelling so have stayed at my fair share of hotels. Along those travels I've determined what I believe to be the best hotel buffet style breakfast. It has to check all the key elements to be considered a good spread.

You need firstly to have a good selection of items to choose from, variety is the spice of life after all. Breakfast cereals of different amke and manufacture, fruit and yoghurts, toast both white and brown as a minimum plus some other sort of pastry and a choice of hot foods such as eggs, bacon, sausages and beans. If it's a budget hotel likely the hot food stuff may not be on offer, which is acceptable however for mine it's never going to win a best breakfast buffet award.
Lastly I think a good breakfast should have a local speciality, for example on hotel I stayed at in Bangkok had steamed dumplings and bbq pork buns at breakfast. I like when there is local dishes because you get to sample new things that you may not otherwise try.

So I'm staying at the Novotel in Hammersmith which is a nice enough hotel and more importantly their breakfast is quite reasonable too. There's 4 cereals, can't remember what they were exactly but I recall cornflakes and rice bubbles at least. They have rockmelon, watermelon, apples, bananas and at least 2 types of yoghurt that I've seen so far.

On the bakery front they have sliced white, brown and grain bread, as well as a couple of loaves you can cut your own chunks from. There's also the pastries; croissants, something I want to call a sultana danish as well as a custard danish. Not enough to be truly spectacular but passable. Also in their favour they have gone to the trouble of providing several different jams plus nutella spread for your croissants.

One thing I really love in a good breakfast is pancakes, and sadly the Novotel has let me down in this regard. Scoring back a half point though they do have waffles, complete with maple syrup.

Donna Summer said gotta have some hot stuff baby and I whole heartedly agree. Novotel offers a decent range of hot foods. There's 2 styles of eggs, poached and scrambled, baked beans, bacon, breakfast sausages, some sort of noodles and hash browns. They also score well in the local delicacy stakes offering friend black pudding. I'll overlook the fact that technically black pudding isn't from England because it at least shows effort.
They could also have added some grilled tomatoes and maybe mushrooms to the line-up, but it's passable.

Another key ingredient at breakfast is the liquid refreshments. Orange juice is a mandatory and I think I'm yet to find a hotel that doesn't have it at breakfast, Novotel doesn't dissapoint here either. They also have that other staple apple juice as well as well as pineapple but something that's a definite win is cranberry juice. I love cranberry juice and it's a rarity to find it on the menu, mostly probably due to the price.
The other thing people want for breakfast is hot drinks. I'm not a big tea drinker nor hot chocolate but I heard people order them and stuff turned up to their table, so I guess they have them both althogh I can't comment on whether it's good or bad.

The other major hot drink is that number one world traded commodity - coffee. Here the Novotel fails big time. I didn't think a halfway decent coffee would be that hard, but whatever they've done they've messed up royally.
It's the drip filter stuff which is never great to start with, but this one seemed bitter as. I normally don't have sugar in coffee even when black, but I put 2 spoons in this one and still tasted like garbage.

Overall the breakfast is quite good, which is a good thing too being as I'll be eating it for the next 3 weeks. I'll just have to avoid the coffee and stick to the awesome cranberry juice.

Update: It appears someone must read this or they just wised up but the past few breakfasts they have had mushrooms and tomoatoes. Now if only we can get some pancakes organised.

Chinese New Year

For chinese New Year we decided to celebrate as well.So we scored a table at Me Wah restaurant in Hobart
Me Wah isn't your average chinese restaurant, the wine list is the first sign of that and backed up by the string of Best Restaurant awards.

It was a set menu for Chinese New Year:
- FINELY DICED COLD BERKSHIRE PORK CROQUETTE W/ SUGAR INFUSED BLACK VINEGAR, LIGHT SOYA ON STIR FRIED BOK CHOY STRIPS
- DRUNKEN SHREDDED CHICKEN BREAST W/ FINELY CHOPPED CORIANDER and WILD WAKAME
- FRESH W.A. YABBIE TAILS PAN TOSSED W/ SPICY SALT, FIVE SPICES and SUGAR GLAZED GAI LARN LEAVES
- DEEP FRIED TARO MASH STUFFED W/ WILD HARVESTED JUMBO SCALLOP DICED SHITAKES MUSHROOM SAUCE ON SWEET POTATO WEDGES
- SHREDDED GREENLIP ABALONE, SUN DRIED CONPOY W/ HAND MADE EGG NOODLES IN ABALONE JUS and BRAISED SLICED LOTUS ROOT
- SMOKED RANNOCK QUAIL BREAST W/ HOI SIN SAUCE and MASTER BROTH POACHED ROUND BEANS
- DICED RANNOCK QUAIL W/ GARLIC CHIVES, BLACK MUSHROOM, BEAN SPROUTS SERVED IN STEAMED MANDARIN PANCAKE
- WAYGU SIRLOIN BEEF CUBES WOK TOSSED W/ DRIED SHALLOTS, 3 KINDS OF CAPSICUM, FRESH CHILLI, WHOLE BLACK BEANS, TSIAO XING RICE WINE and STEAMED SNOW PEAS
- WAYGU BEEF MINCE, FRESH SHALLOTS and GARLIC W/ FRIED RICE
- BAKED CRÈME BRULEE EGG TART
- TROPICAL FRESH FRUIT SALAD W/ LYCHEE LIQUEUR and SIROP DE GRENADINE
- RED BEAN PUREE WRAPPED W/ SAGO
- IRON BUDDHA TEA OR ESPRESSO COFFEE

The food as you would expect was very good, the only real fault being that the yabbie tails were perhaps a little too salty.The dancing lion and whole ceremony made for a very enjoyable night.

Definitely recommend if anyone hasn't been to Me Wah to go, and be adventurous get away from beef in black bean and try something different.

Carrot Cake

I decided I needed to do more baking so last night I embarked on making a carrot cake.

So after scouring the web and comparing recipes I picked up what I think is the basics and went from there.

My Recipe:

2 cups grated carrot (I used about 4 medium sized carrots)

3/4 cup sunflower or vegetable oil

1 cup brown or caster sugar

3 eggs

2 cups SR flour or use plain flour and add a tsp of baking powder

1 tsp bi-carb soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp of ground nutmeg

1 cup chopped walnuts

Icing

1 220g tub philadelphia cream cheese (use light or normal as you see fit)

1 cup icing sugar

1 lemon

more choped walnuts to decorate.

Mix together the sugar, eggs and oil in one bowl until combined.

Put the flour, bi carb, nutmeg and cinnamon in another bowl, then mix in the wet ingredients.

Once combined add the grated carrot and walnuts.

Put in a cake tin of some description (see more on that below) and bake in a 180 degree oven until cooked (about 30 mins)

Mix the cream cheese, icing sugar, grated lemon rind, and juice of half or whole of the lemon depending on taste and size of the lemon.

Once the cake is cooked leave to cool then ice with the lemon cream cheese frosting

Firstly the result. Well the cake is moist and the icing is good and just the right amount of lemon.

My only really bad comment it might have had a touch too much nutmeg I have already adjusted the above to address this. In my version I used a full teaspoon of nutmeg.

Now my other point. The reason I said in a tin of some description and just until cooked is I've finally figured out why sometime my cakes weren't cooked or cooked to quickly aka burnt.

There's a very complex relationship between how wet your mixture is, the size and shape of the tin and how hot your oven is (and if it's fan forced or not as well!).

A vey wet mixture requires a combination of lower temperature and shallower/broader cake tin. I've mostly been using a loaf style tin and it's too deep for a really wet mixture. In order to be cooked correctly throughout before you start to burn the outside the mix needs to starting to approach a dough like consistency, or else you only need 5-7cm or so deep of mix in the tin, which defeats the purpose of using a loaf tin.

I did use a loaf tin for the above and had to wind the oven right down to about 150-160 and it took nearly a full hour to be cooked. Also for anyone that hasn't already heard the tip you can tell when it's cooked by sticking a skewer into the cake and pulling it out and seeing if anything still sticks to it.

The ideal tin I think for the above would be a 20cm round cake tin, the cake should then be cooked through before the outside starts to go too hard or burnt.

That's my real point I suppose with this post, sure the carrot cake recipe is good and now I know where to find it again. :) I'm sure this is knowledge most of our grandmas know but took me quite a while to figure it out for myself.

Hopefully by releasing it into the world I'll save someone else the hassles and people's cooking will be better.

Xmas recovery

It's been a while since I posted but that's not so much neglect as I just haven't been anywhere or done anything exciting since Christmas.

I don't think it would be in my best interests to crique Christmas dinner as I might get the smack down from Mum, plus I also helped cook it so you know it was good. That's probably the last full on meal I've had.

I did recipricate the hospitality by cooking dinner one night whilst at the folks, we had steamed pork dumplings in a soy and mirin sauce (too dry needed to be wetter, don't pre-cook or only very lightly next time). Main was pan fired salmon on asian greens. the skin of which I managed to burn but saved it reasonably OK.

Whilst in Melbourne I did go to a place on Tatersall's Lane called Shanghai Dumpling or something similar. Reasonably priced, as good as any dumpling place going around, not the best not the worst I've ever had, wsa packed with more asians than other races which is usually a good sign.

More interesting was the really hip looking outdoor bar just further up the street. It was an old caravan with lots of shipping containers and pallets stacked to sit on. Very urban, and very different. I'd imagine they'd do a roaring trade in summer but wouldn't be open much in the winter, but the setup means the overheads would be low so I guess it'd work.

Since seeing in the new year with a humble BBQ, the next biggest highlight has been corporate box catering at the Moorilla Open in Hobart. What can be said about 2 day old sandwiches in plastic triangle cases, at least the beer was cold. they should probably get someone with better counting skills than a ten year olds to run drinks though, and while they're at it get an electronic scoreboard too.

Almost forgot, the highlight for Xmas was a book entitled The Curry Bible by Mridula Baljekar to add to the collection. Hard covers, pictures on the left one recipe per page on the right for those playing at home.

I tried the chicken korma with pistachios, and it was very nice. I think the key was the cardamom seeds, kind of sweet but kind of tangy or spicy at the same time, interesting none the less.

I'll endeavour to go out and hit somewhere in the next week, so I have something to write about.

Cheers.