Monkey Bananas

Hey, have I told you about the tours I have been doing at Prahran Market?

No? Oops sorry.

Well instead of me rabbiting on, have a look here and here or even better just come along one Saturday! All the details are here.

Now the intention of this post was not the market but these extremely cute monkey bananas that I brought after a tour a few weeks ago.

This variety are my absolute, hands down favourite. Firm texture, even when very ripe and small enough that they are not a meal in themselves as some of those ginormous cavendish bananas can be.

What I loved so much about these hands in particular was the bunch on the right, they were particularly tiny, just minuscule as you can see next to the 20 cent piece.

I asked at the counter as I paid for them, "so, do you have any smaller?" The woman looked at me with the strangest frown and then just absolutely cracked up.
"No, they are the smallest".

I totally believed her.

Kaikoura crayfish

Once upon a time*, back when I got married many months ago, we took a short trip to New Zealand to celebrate with the kiwi contingent that couldn't join us in Melbourne for the official party.
A highlight of the trip apart from PDC's mammoth half marathon PB time, was the most lovely cocktail party that was thrown for us, one of the food highlights of this evening was some very special Kaikoura crayfish.

I've been through Kaikoura a couple of times, it's a small town on the north-east coast of New Zealands south island. The thing I remember most clearly is the fur seal colony that lives along the coast there and the linked foodie thing about seeing these seals that explains my keen interest in this town, seals love crayfish and so do I.
Luckily for both of us Kaikoura translates from Maori as 'Meal of Crayfish' - needless to say there is crayfish to be had for both the Aussie tourist and the seals.

The crayfish canapes you can see in this image I made from two crayfish that my mother-in law bartered for from a licensed Kaikoura diver. Apparently only licensed divers can catch the crays and this guy had more than he needed. (...great to see that smart old fashioned barter is still alive and well)

The crays nearly fell victim to a mornay sauce *phew* before PDC and I decided to take charge and made these ooh-la-la canapes.
The baguette we baked for the croutons was already on hand and we whipped up some mayo quicker than getting in the car to go to the supermarket (if you doubt that, look at my recipe here) the garnish was the tricky part.

An avocado slice and dill was a logical classic combination but never being just satisfied with the easy option I decided to add another flavour combo to the other half.
Persimmons were in season and perfect at the time and I had one waiting for my breakfast the next morning. Thinking about the flavours I decided (with testing on myself, of course!) that the vanilla characters of the persimmon reminded me of a frenchy vanilla sauce sometimes served with fish and the crunch well that went without saying, the decision was made.
So a smear of mayonnaise, a medallion of crayfish (that we had cooked earlier that morning) and then some match sticks of persimmon.

They were gone in a flash. Lucky that cray diver was quicker than a flash

*I opened my blog account and found this as a draft post from what seems like it was from so long ago it was a fairy tale, hence I just had to start with 'once upon a time'.

Perfect beach lunch

We spent the last four days at Railay in coastal Thailand. After 2 days of patchy rain and one hell of a storm (as we should expect, as it is rainy season in the region) the sun came out and I had the opportunity to tan my Melbourne-winter pale legs.

Altering between the beach, our beautiful pool and the bar we managed to find what I thought was the perfect beach goer lunch.


A spicy som tam salad (green papaya bashed with dried prawns, fish sauce, chilli, lime, garlic, peanuts, snake beans and tomato... no doubt more and more as well), served on the same plate with some marinated and fried chicken thigh and some of my favourite sticky rice. Lengths of more snake beans and cucumber where the textural garnish.

Pretty healthy, really speedy and bloody amazing flavours. No doubt I will be recreating this at home in Melbourne come summer.

Coda Bar + Restaurant

I keep starting and restarting this post; how do I describe the food at Coda that actually informs a diner more thoroughly than what I was before we visited?
I thought about what we ate and when, how we ate it, and then thought about the house named roll and how it essentially sums up the Coda palate:

'Coda roll, crisp parcel of bone marrow, ginger, shiitake mushroom and rice paddy herb'

Essentially a spring roll with pieces of bone marrow, shiitake and ginger inside, served with a lemon based dressing and stalks of lemony rice paddy herb. The bone marrow was rich and palate coating yet the dressing and herb add a refreshing acid lift.
I loved this. I love the seamless fusion of the ideas.

All the other dishes we ate were not neat fusions of Eur-Asian ideas such as the Coda Roll. The menu seemed to be split into South East Asian dishes focusing on Vietnam and Thailand or pure French benchmarks such as parfait, tartare and terrine. Yet as you would expect from a modern Australian menu there was Asian produce mixed through the European stalwarts; so oysters served with mirin and pomelo, or ginger in our coleslaw makes perfect sense, to us.

What didn't make perfect sense to me was the powerful flavours of Asia served at the same time as delicate French classics; my MacLeay Valley rabbit cassoulet was absolutely swamped on the taste front, by the in-your-face aromats of mussels stir fried with rice wine, chinese sausage and chilli. Likewise our steak tartare seemed under seasoned (perhaps it was) in comparison to the 'Quail Delight' flavour bombs or the spanner crab, galangal, chilli and lime betel leaves.

Perhaps these are just opening wobbles, we did dine just 8 days into what I no doubt predict will be a very successful business, but next time I will definitely be more careful about asking when my dishes will be served.

A high point of our evening was the amazing service. Mykal -who's face I know from MoVida and his partner Kate were absolutely glowing with pride in their first venue. Our waiter was friendly and had that perfect knack of being there just at the right time (though she had no idea of what the cheese selection was that night - perhaps that's a good indicator of the overriding importance put on the Asian dishes, especially since another person explained the use of the paddy herb with the precision of a biologist).

No doubt with chef partner Adam D'Sylva in the kitchen Asian dishes will be a focus, I just hope to see some balance across the broad range of flavours, tweaks are inevitable in a new restaurant and I am excited about my next visit, some of my most memorable European food experiences have happened in Asia, from artistic artichokes in Dalat to exquisitely matured Epoisses in Hong Kong and my favourite fusion on all, the banh mi. I hope to continue this traditional now at home, in Melbourne.

Welcome Coda.

Persimmons, different styles for different uses

A few years ago I learnt the difference the hard why. But since then I haven't seen the offending (when firm) acorn shaped persimmon that often.

I'm still cautious though whenever I buy one of these vanillian scented beauties.

The acorn shaped style on the left should be soft and a deep orange orange colour when its jellied flesh is ready to be spooned out.

The tomato shaped style on the right should be firm and a apricot orange colour whrn its crunchy flesh is ready to be cut into wedges or eaten as an apple.

Nice and simple.

Oh and thanks to Jess for beating me to the idea...! ;)

The Deanery, Melbourne

Still in catchup mode, I started this last week before my weekend in NZ...


Tonight I headed out for dinner with a girlfriend, we had no real plans but a short list of possibilities. It was too early for our first choice, Coda (due to open properly next week; soft opening from tomorrow) so The Deanery, Robin Wickens new-ish haunt, it was.


So yes, I wasn't in the head space for it but its certainly didn't win me over; food, service, wine, ambiance or value.


I've drank at The Deanery many times and even had a few bar snacks over the years but have never felt inclined to eat there. It feels like a bar and to be honest I guess they know that, that's why when we arrived and asked about having dinner we were advised that we would be "more comfortable" upstairs.

So we are lead upstairs, around a corner to a spot-lit, double set table. We realise that yes, the bar space was definitely more of what we had in mind, yet we are now here and at the mercy of an assortment of waiters. House made bread arrives, oh no this just isn't what I had in mind at all.

If I wanted flavoured bread, I'd go to Bakers Delight...

The night rolls on from here. The food is fine; fancy but fine. The menu is impossible to decipher (and that's rich coming from me) and the dishes we receive though interesting are far from what we could possibly image - maybe that's the point? (My thoughts and pictures are on twitter, here, here, here and here)

Well I guess the ex-Interlude customers (read: older, richer, stuffier, conservative) would like this but from a glance around the empty dining room I guess that's all it will impress, and hey didn't Interlude go out of business? Either we don't get him or he doesn't get us but Robin Wickens food seems more than a little out of touch with the current hospitality climate.

Without nagging on any further, I feel I must mention the service... just strange...
Stiff, a bit pompous ("so, no entree for you?", "just a glass?") and plain unthoughtful. A silly mess with our credit card payments with three enquiries from different waiters and a forgotten scarf left in the center of our table as we sipped digestives in the bar (we were informed of the scarf, by a fellow diner and strangly not the waiter that must have moved it there). I'm not sure what it was all about but I am uncertain who was in charge of the dining room that night and I guess that's my answer.

So The Deanery, what can I say.
Pop in for a drink by all means, the wines are reasonably priced but don't be lead up the stairs to the dining room, I don't think you will be "more comfortable" up there.

Oh and even the MasterChef caption writer can spell Caesar (as in the salad) why can't The Deanery? At a diningroom like this, it's all about trust, trust that everyone is as keen and passionate about the product as the diner; this just screams to me that they can't be bothered.

Sorry guys, no wonder the traditional media haven't published anything, maybe I should have followed suit in the "if you can't say something nice..." bandwagon but its just not in my nature.

The last tomato

Could this be Melbourne's last tomato?

Being strictly of the seasonal food camp, it has greatly amused me that my tiny courtyard garden has proven to be so unseasonal this year.

When everyone else was experiencing bumper crops of tomatoes, my heirloom bushes barely had a flower and the fruit that did eventuate died in our desert like heat wave of 40+ degree temperatures.

And now when I should have pulled out the dying vine months ago (but I held out hope for this tiny slowly growing tomato), I have this a gorgeous Black Zebra tomato, my last.

As you can see from the first picture, the vine is totally dead apart from the one stem holding on to my tomato, just grown in a pot in my sunny courtyard in St Kilda.

Weird unseasonal stuff huh!