The Flavours of Vietnam Cookbook Giveaway!

he says:

I love cookbooks! I go through different phases using certain cookbooks all the time and then neglecting them for long periods of time. I love it when something triggers me to dust it off and rediscover it again. It's a testament to a great cookbook that it keeps coming back to reveal more layers as you progress along your journey of discovery of a particular cuisine.

On of my favourite cookbooks in this regard is the very understated The Flavours of Vietnam by Meera Freeman and Le Van Nhan. This great little book is not a huge production, it has only a few photos and contains mostly text. Often the lack of photos is a major issue for me when it comes to cookbooks as I find it really helps to see what the meal your are attempting to reproduce actually looks like. The main reason that this isn't so much of an issue when it comes to The Flavours of Vietnam is because the book is basically a list of recipes for all the meals you find on most Melbourne Vietnamese restaurant menus. I find it very satisfying to be able to reproduce a meal that I have enjoyed in a restaurant days earlier and this book has been the key to many instances when I have achieved this. So what I'm saying is, you don't need the pictures, just go to a Vietnamese restaurant order your meal and hopefully enjoy it. Then go home and look it up in this book, head to Footscray, Richmond or Springvale to buy the ingredients and then just follow the recipe in this book. I guarantee you will come very close to reproducing the restaurant meal you enjoyed.

Some of the recipe books out there have wonderful photos and list copious amounts of ingredients for a particular meal but when you go to try and cook it, it doesn't look or taste anything like the same meal from your favourite Vietnamese restaurant. That's not to say it doesn't taste delicious, just somehow different. A good example of this is the Nuoc Mam from Luke Nguyen's Songs of Sapa. I own and love all of Luke's cookbooks and watch his shows regularly but there is no way his Nuoc Mam (which is excellent) tastes at all like the version you get in the local Melbourne Vietnamese restaurants. This is probably due to all the regional variations which is understandable but also very frustrating to the home cook trying to reproduce a particular experience. On that point, I  am starting to think that maybe Melbourne Vietnamese food is in itself a regional variation. We do have one of the largest populations of Vietnamese outside Vietnam so its not that crazy an idea. The Nuoc Mam from The Flavours of Vietnam is much closer to what I have found in many of the Melbourne Vietnamese restaurants so as I'm writing this I'm forming the view that this cookbook may not be an authenctic guide to Vietnamese food in general but it certainly is the best cookbook that I know of to showcase the regional variation of Vietnamese cuisine that is Melbourne.

Ok so as usual, I need to get to the point. I have a brand new and unstained version of this cookbook that I am giving away to a lucky reader. All you need to do is leave a comment telling me about your favourite Vietnamese meal and the name of the restaurant at which you enjoyed it. Simple! I also need you to enter your email address in the 'Follow by Email' box to the top right of the screen so I have some way to contact you if you win. Alternatively, you can 'Like' krapow on Facebook. And that's it! I am happy to cover the cost of posting the book interstate or overseas within reason (I reckon about $10 should get it most places). Even better, if you are able to meet me on a weekday in the Melbourne CBD I will deliver it to you in person. Entries close on Sunday 29 April.

Good Luck!

Burgundy Backlog

he says:

While I love drinking Pinot and Burgundy I find writing about it much more difficult that writing about food. As a result I tend to put it off until I build a backlog of to do wine posts which usually results in most of then not happening at all. The obvious solution to this problem is to forge on and not be too precious about the whole thing so I hope you'll forgive me for not having the most detailed descriptions. At the end of the day I believe that all the descriptors are helpful but to be blunt it really just comes down to whether you thought the wine was good, great, poor or hopefully exceptional!

Choosing wine can be a challenging process and I select different wines for different reasons. I'm not much of a food wine matcher as I pretty much drink only Pinot and Burgundy and eat only Thai and Vietnamese but lately I have been buying wine with a view to learning more about the different styles. I am particularly interested in the comparison between French Burgundy (old world) and Australian Pinot Noir (new world). Ever since I learned about the different Cru's of Burgundy I have made it my goal to enjoy as many of them as possible, sadly no Grand Cru has hit my palate to date...  I recently learned about the 'Village' classification which I had mistakenly believed was any French Burgundy that wasn't single vineyard Premier or Grand Cru. I now know that this is not the case, to be 'Village' the grapes must come from the local 'Village' area, as opposed to a 'Bourgogne' where the grapes can come from anywhere within the Burgundy region. Hopefully I have that right...

The very friendly sommelier in City Wine Store (easily the best wine buying the the CBD) pointed this out to me when recommending the Robert Chevillon Bourgogne which at around the $50 mark seemed quite good value. This wine is not classified as 'Village' however the sommelier informed me that it is very likely that this wine was in fact 'Village' although it was not labelled as such. 

Ok so now to get to the point. First impressions of the Robert Chevillon 2009 Bourgogne were a strong pungency on the nose that was not easily identifiable, we decided that perhaps it was hints of sulphur with a somewhat musky aroma of mould. I realise that doesn't sound great and we were certainly taken aback by it. I decant all my wines and we decided to let this sit for a little while to see if the pungency blew off with exposure to a bit of air. After about 20 minutes we tried it again and were pleasantly impressed by how the nose had mellowed considerably, although traces of the initial pungency remained. The wine exhibited a clean clear clarity with a dark intensity. The flavour was mildly plummy with a slight amount of tightness in terms of acidity. Overall the wine was enjoyable with a nice length and balanced tannins once you got past the confronting nose on entry. In conclusion, I rated this wine Good but not Great and was left a bit perplexed about how useful this wine was a tool for learning. 

Next up is the Bass Phillip Crown Prince 2010 Pinot Noir. Phillip Jones is pretty much infamous for his excellent Victorian Pinot and given that he is one of a only a few high quality (ie high cost) Gippsland producers I have a strong interest in his wines. From memory, the Crown Price was around the $60 mark which compared to the other Bass Phillip wines is probably a good price, his premium vintage sells for around $130 with some of his other vintages selling for the $90 mark. Yes I am looking for any excuse to try them all!  

In terms of appearance the Crown Prince was decidedly different to the Robert Chevillon, the clarity was much duller and I suspected that perhaps it was unfiltered. I have a soft spot for unfiltered wines, for some reason I really like the powdering dullness of intensity that they display. Maybe its my palate associating the intensity with the wonderful funky goodness typical of a lot of unfiltered wines. The colour was quite dark for a younger pinot, I rated it ruby/garnet although my notes from drinking these wines are from before I dicovered the colourlovers blog which has an excellent guide for assessing the colour of wine.  You can check it out here, I suggest bookmarking it on your iPhone or iPad. On entry the wine showed a degree of spritziness toward the front palate, I associated this with the acidity and noted that this mellowed considerably after a few minutes in the glass. The aroma was absolutely wonderful musky earthy funk and a great exponent of what I associate Gippsland Pinot to be.   Flavour wise it had the usual high level of red fruit that I have come to expect from the younger Australian Pinot. This was complimented perfectly by a nice touch of mild oak.  In conclusion, I rated this wine Great. 

Another City Wine Store purchase (actually all the wine in this post is from City Wine Store) was the Monthelie-Les-Duresses 2008 Premier Cru Domaine Des Comtes Lafon. Remember that if you can! One of the things I really like about the Premier Cru wines is that the websites usually have a map of the local village showing where all the individual vineyards are located, Monthelie-Les-Duresses is shown here. I like the idea of using this simple map to find the google map satellite images to get a feel for the area in which the wine is produced, hopefully this link works (unfortunately there is street view of the actual appellation). The Les Duresses appellation is right in the centre of the screen with the village of Monthelie to the right of screen (the google map is rotated about 90 degrees to the map on the Monthelie website). Also of interest to some may be this link which gives you a simple description of the viticulture of this appellation.  

My notes on this wine are a bit more formulaic but I will reproduce them here for those interested. 

Appearance

Clarity: Clear and Bright

Intensity: Medium

Colour: Ruby/Garnet

Nose

Condition: Clean

Intensity: Light

Aroma: Spice and Mineral with Mild Oak

Palate

Sweetness: Medium

Acidity: Low

Tannin: Low

Body: Light

Flavour: Red Fruit (Berries), Spice and Oak

Length: Short and Smooth

Conclusion: I rated this wine Great

Overall I found the Monthelie-Les-Duresses smooth and subtle (perhaps a bit too subtle) with an aroma and flavour of spice and oak and a mild touch of red fruit. It also displayed a nice level of tannins that were most noticeable toward the back of the palate. I decided that this was not a complex wine, rathe it was quite light and simple. I do acknowledge that at 2008 it may have been a bit young and as with most well made Burgundy would benefit from a few more years in the cellar. However, until wines with 10 years of age are available at a non astronomical price I will have to settle for drinking them a little younger. This wine was around the $80 mark which I think is pretty cheap for a Premier Cru Burgundy. 

The last wine of this post is The Wanderer 2010 from the Upper Yarra Valley. Unfortunately I do not have any notes about this wine so I have to use my memory which is not great so this is going to be short and simple. The sommelier informed that in his opinion this is one of the best Pinots from the Yarra Valley so with that recommendation I had to give it a go, I think it was around the $40 mark. This wine displayed excellent flavour and lovely smooth tannins for a wine so young. It was pretty typical to the Victorian style of Pinot and I enjoyed it immensly. In conclusion I rated it Great. I don't drink much Yarra Valley Pinot so I am happy to agree with the City Wine Store sommelier that this is one of the better Yarra Valley Pinots out there. In saying that, I think it could find some tougher competition if it went up against many of the other Victoria Pinot regions, namely Macedon Ranges, Mornington Peninsula, Bellarine Peninsula and of course Gippsland.

In summary, as for which is better, French Burgundy or Victorian Pinot? I think it comes down to personal preference. I have a few ideas about what I enjoy in both regions and what I look for when tasting them. So far I have come to the conclusion that Victorian Pinots drink better than their French counterparts when they are a bit younger. Albeit that they are very different in style and definitely far more fruit driven. I find the French Burgundy much less fruit dominated and more refined in construction (by refined I mean more processed, filtered, fined etc), more emphasis seems to be placed on the developing the tannins and acidity. So far I have found the Burgundies to be more oak and spice and the Victorian Pinot more fruit and floral. Sadly I have not had the chance to try a well aged Victorian Pinot as they seem to be as rare as hen's teeth. I am guessing that this is due to the smaller lot sizes of the Victorian producers but in saying that if anyone has a hot tip about where to buy a great aged (8 years plus) Victorian Pinot please contact me immediately! 

Thai Thonglor 55

she says:

It was such a beautiful Sunday and I wanted to take Charlie to a different park for a play before we had lunch. Andy suggested a restaurant in Maribyrnong that he would like to check out so we went to a lovely park out that way on the river and then headed to Thai Thonglor 55 for lunch.

This place is quite different to most of the Thai and Vietnamese restaurants that we usually dine at.  Thai Thonglor has pulled out all the stops to create an upper market Thai restaurant.... cushioned leather chairs, wooden tables, over sized Thai style cutlery, Thai ornaments and flowers all help to create a lovely atmosphere that is cosy and comfy.

When we arrived, two staff members were sitting down to their lunch - we were very early to arrive at Thai Thonglor (around 11.30 am) and the first customers of the day so this might be the only time the staff get to have a quick bite to eat.  Of course eagle eye Andy instantly noticed that the staff members were eating Boat Noodles.  If you read this blog often you will know that Andy is slightly obsessed with Boat Noodles so there was no doubting what he would be ordering.

The waitress handed us the menu and after a quick scan Andy quickly realised that boat noodles were not on the menu. Ah, but that did not stop my little Boat Noodle man..... he pointed to the staff members and told the lovely waitress that he wanted what they had.  She had limited English and after some pointing and broken Thai conversation, she giggled and told us that Boat Noodles were not on the menu but that she would check with the chef.  It seemed to be quite a process for her to talk to the chef and there was a lot of back and forth going on but finally the chef agreed to make it for us.  And can I say thank goodness she did!!  Firstly I think Andy would have been gutted if she had said no and secondly the Boat Noodles were fantastic! The broth was very rich and flavoursome and the beef was very tender.  This meal is so moreish..... it is very very difficult to stop eating it and I really had to fight Andy for my share.  So a big thanks to Thai Thonglor for agreeing to feed us this dish..... and please put it on the menu!

We also ordered Pad See Ewe with chicken.  This was also very yummy - lovely crunchy veggies, delicate sauce and tender chicken combine to make this dish just lovely.

We also were served pig skin crackers and swilled all of this down with Cha Yen (Thai milk tea). The crackers are excellent (Charlie loves them) and the tea was lovely and creamy..... I have been making the tea at home and although my homemade version has improved it is still not as yummy as the ones I order at many Thai restaurants. I am not sure what I am doing wrong, but I suspect that I may not be adding enough condensed milk?

This is a lovely little place and not too badly priced for lunch.  We did get to glance over the dinner menu and that is more expensive but for a great night out in Maribyrnong it would be well worth it.

Thai Thonglor 55
40 Edgewater Blvd.
Maribyrnong.
Ph. 9317 9880

Grilled Pork Neck salad with Jaew

she says:

Hooray.....a blog entry from the lady of the house! Not a willing one either I might say. Yes, I will admit that I was slightly peeved that I had to organise this meal for the household the other day. This is not because I dislike cooking, but because I had other activities on the agenda for the day that I had to can.

So after I got over my 'woe is me' thought process, I really quite enjoyed putting this meal together and it turned out to be an absolute winner! The comment of the night went something like 'baby, the last two meals you have cooked lately have been awesome' - actually to be honest I can't remember what Andy said, but I am sure that this is what he meant.

So normally when we buy pork neck we marinate it in a lemongrass/chilli/garlic etc concoction which I have referred to in a previous blog marinated pork with papaya salad. This time Andy sent me a recipe from she simmers - not only was it dead easy, but it was so much better then the marinade of the past.

So here is what you do (you can also refer to the she simmers link above for more info):
Slice pork neck thinly (about 500g)
Mix together 3 tbs palm sugar (chopped finely/grated)
2 tbs oyster sauce
1 tbs fish sauce
2 tbs whisky, brandy or rum (we never drink spirits but luckily we had a left over bottle of whisky from a party we had here many moons ago)
Mix all ingredients together and marinate pork for 2+ hours.

The pork can be served with a side salad or rice that will of course need a dipping sauce - enter Jaew (again from she simmers) ......

Jaew:
Oh my goodness this dipping sauce is amazing - spicy and yummy and excellent with the pork.
1/4 cup shallots sliced thinly
1/4 cup finely chopped coriander
1/2 tsp galangal powder
1/3 cup fish sauce
Juice of one lime
2tsp palm sugar
1 tbsp toaster rice powder
1 tbsp dried chillies (grounded)

Mix all of this together and adjust flavours to taste. I made my own toasted rice powder which is quite simple really. Use glutinous rice (sticky rice). Put about 1/2 cup in frying pan over low/medium heat until brown which takes about 10 mins or so. Keep moving rice around so that it cooks evenly and does not burn. Once browned, wait for it to cool and then bash to a powder in the motor and pestle.

Cook the pork in a smoking hot griddle pan.  I served this meal with a simple side of freshly sliced cucumber, iceberg lettuce and the Jaew.  Simple but very tasty!

Issara Thai

he says:

I recently discovered a new favourite cheap Thai lunch option near my work. Cheap, Thai and nearby = win, win and win! Issara Thai is in the foodcourt underneath the Cambridge International College building at 422 Little Collins Street. I mentioned this unusual little foodcourt in my recent post about Little Collins Espresso's wonderful Vietnamese iced milk coffee. Read about it here. Issara Thai is the latest player to occupy this spot in the foodcout, it was previously Nusantara's second city store then another Thai restaurant then Issara who originally opened with a set menu style offering served up in Japanese style compartment takeaway containers with delicate little egg nets on each meal. It was a cute offering but obviously not the best fit for the local lunchers as they have changed things up to now offer a bain marie with the choice of fried rice or vegetarian Pad Thai with a choice of extra dishes. Fried rice or Pad Thai with one extra dish is a bargain $5.50 or $7 for two extra dishes, also a bargain!

I have been a regular since they changed to the new offering and have slowly worked my way through most of their meals, all of which I have found to be exceptional. Issara offer the usual green chicken curry, red beef curry and massaman curry but what excites me more is the less common offerings of stir fried eggplant with minced pork, braised pork with tofu and boiled eggs and chicken mince balls with potato gems. Also great is the stir fried beef with chilli jam (nahm prik pao) and veggie and tofu stir fry.

Early on in my adventures with Thai food I often discounted many dishes as not authentic Thai because they used ingredients like potato but I now believe that potato is actually used quite often in Thai cooking (other than Mussaman curry of course). The chicken mince balls with potato gems is one of these dishes. I love this dish, which I think is more of a Bangkok street food meal rather than a traditional Thai classic. Lately, I've developed a bit of a theory that Bangkok street food vendors can sometimes be very progressive with the meals they offer and are constantly coming up with new combinations of traditional flavours combined with what many would consider more western vegetables. I'm not sure where I'm going with this other than to say that its best to keep an open mind and not write dishes off as untraditional too quickly. Just because a dish seems to have western influences doesn't mean you won't see it served up on Bangkok's streets and I don't mean Khao San Road. What I'm saying in a round about kind of way is that the Thai seem to have a way of taking elements of western and other cultures and blending them relatively seamlessly into their own modern culture. A good example of this is the updated version of the wai traditional Thai greeting while holding a mobile phone from the excellent book on popular Thai culture 'Very Thai' (top right hand corner).

Now that I've said that, one thing I'm still a bit undecided about is Issara's use of tiny cubes of carrot in their fried rice. Don't get me wrong, their fried rice is simple but excellent. I think my issue with carrot in fried rice is just a bit of a hangup from the Chinese Aussie version of fried rice (sometimes with peas too!) offered in the 'all you can pile on a plastic plate' shopping centre buffets. I'm pretty sure you won't find carrot in the fried rice (Khao Pad) that you buy in Thailand, except perhaps if you're in Phuket! Maybe some things are sacrosanct and not to be played with, in my theory Khao Pad falls into this category.

Another Issara favourite of mine is the stir fried eggplant with minced pork. I have only recently discovered my love of eggplant, I went crazy for it when I first tried Cinnamon's Sri Lankan eatery's superb version of egg plant curry. Issara's eggplant offering is also excellent, beautiful smoky creamy eggplant combined with a lovely seasoned pork mince mix. It's not something I've seen on any other Thai menu which makes it even more appealing to me. Is it authentic? See my theory above. 

Aside from being great value for money and having such an interesting variety of meals, one of my favourite things about Issara is their use of heaps of fresh vegetables. Great exponents of this are the stir fried pork, the stir fried beef with chilli jam and the veggie and tofu stir fry. The green chicken curry is another great example, the use of broccoli, cauliflower, carrot, cabbage and capsicum is again perhaps not what you would traditionally expect but the flavour and heat of green curry was spot on for me and the vegetables add a wonderful crunchy freshness to the whole meal. If you could't already tell, I'm a huge fan of Issara Thai. I love having somewhere that sells fresh cheap Thai food so close to my work. I reckon I probably eat there (or get take away) 2 or 3 times a week. They are easily the best business to occupy this shop in the foodcourt and I'm very hopeful that they'll outlast all the other previous occupants. 

I almost forgot to mention, as if Issara Thai's $5.50 and $7 lunch offers weren't already ridiculously good value (I should say they are not skimpy when it comes to serving size) you can also get a free can of soft drink with every meal if you show your  THAI Liciouz VIP membership card. What is THAI Liciouz? I visited their stall at the Melbourne Thai Festival and was given a free VIP membership card which offers various discounts at heaps of local Thai restaurants. Check out their website for more information.  www.thailiciouz.com.au 

Vietnamese Iced Milk Coffee at Little Collins Espresso

he says:

Ever since my Friday morning visit to Footscray the other week I have developed a real taste for Vietnamese iced milk coffee. I usually only drink coffee in the morning and the other morning I decided I wanted a Vietnamese coffee instead of my usual flat white. I wasn't sure where to find one in the CBD so early so I headed to Swanston street to try my luck. Unfortunately none of the Vietnamese restaurants are open at 8am so I despondently headed back to William street where I work. On my way I decided to try my luck at a little cafe in the foodcourt in the ground floor of the Cambridge International College building at 422 Little Collins Street. The foodcourt is a bit of an odd one, it has quite a few vacant shops and almost resembles a deserted uni cafeteria. I don't think a lot of people know about it but its one of my favourites, mostly for the recently opened Issara Thai, but I'll post about them another time.

This morning I had a feeling that one of the other shops, Little Collins Espresso might be a chance of selling a Vietnamese coffee. I had often looked at this place as they have signage offering western style Banh Mi which led me to suspect that the proprietors were Vietnamese. I was very pleased to learn that I my suspicions were correct and for $3.50 the very friendly owner whipped me up a delicious and very strong Vietnamese iced milk coffee. For anyone who hasn't tried one before and who doesn't have the luxury of being able to visit Footscray for their morning caffeine hit I highly recommend a visit to Little Collins Espresso. I know my seasonal timing if a bit off as its starting to get a bit cold in the morning for iced coffee but the cold sweetness is just so lovely and soothing in the morning and a nice change from the usual Italian espresso. I realise that the use of condensed milk probably pushes the sugar content a bit higher than an espresso but I like the fact that the Vietnamese caffeine offering has a lot less dairy with a few spoonfuls of condensed milk versus the standard espresso having probably around a cup of milk.

Those worried about not receiving their morning caffiene boost certainly need not be concerned, I was feeling the effects of this one for several hours afterwards. As a bit of trivia to finish with, when we visited Dalat in the Vietnamese central highlands a couple of years ago our tour guide Thitty informed us that Vietnam is the world's third largest producer of coffee beans. So there you go!

Brisbane Breakfasts

he says:

This is the last of my Brisbane food posts. Overall I really enjoyed all of the food I ate in Brisbane but I have to say the highlight for me were the breakfasts. Brisbane breakfasts have certainly come a long way since I lived there back in the 90's when fancy meant toasted sourdough instead of mighty white! I don't normally get to eat breakfast out much these days, being the parent of a 3 year old we find that the whole process just a bit too hard. It is definitely made even tougher given that getting a table anywhere decent these days can be very difficult. I'm not really a fan of the waiting list especially when I really just want that first coffee to start the day. As I was sans child in Brisbane, the first problem was averted and I very was keen to see what Brisbane had to offer. I'm pretty sure the second problem was also averted due to the fact I wasn't in town on Saturday and Sunday. By all reports Brisbane suffers the same issues as Melbourne when it comes to snagging a table on weekends.

My first breakfast was at the Gunshop Cafe in West End.  I adore West End, we lived in a lovely little worker's cottage in Paris street back in the day and since then we have always had a soft spot for West End.  The Gunshop breakfast menu has heaps of great offerings but as I always like to try something different when I see it, I couldn't go past the Black Pudding, Toasted Brioche, Fried Duck Egg, Rocket, Apple, Prune and Pear Compote. It was superb! The black pudding was sensational, so rich but also such a lovely delicate creamy texture, melt in the mouth deliciousness. I also really liked the toasted brioche, I'm a sucker for sweet bread and thought it combined perfectly with the richness of the black pudding. When it comes to breakfast I think it's often the sauce or relish that makes a dish stand out and the apple, prune and pear compote was definitely a great exponent of my theory. It was the perfect compliment, both sweet and rich at the same time. This was easily my favourite breakfast in Brisbane and I struggled not to order it again the following day.

A few other meals on the Gunshop menu had taken my eye so I returned the next day to continue my research... If there's no black pudding on the menu (which is usually the case) I'll often go for a fish breakfast, maybe because you don't see it that often (expect smoked salmon) but also because its just that bit lighter than the usual protein heavy bacon options. Gunshop had a few fish options available but I settled on the Vodka Cured Ocean Trout, Poached Eggs, Spinach, Rye Toast, Hollandaise. I'm not usually a fan of hollandaise, it's not that I don't like the taste, its just that the food snob in my finds it a bit passe. I am also wary of it because of the many reviews you read about poorly made efforts. That said, I always try to resist the temptation to meddle with the chef's creations, especially when you can obviously tell that a lot of thought has gone into each flavour combination so I resisted the urge to ask for the apple, prune and pear compote instead of the hollandaise. I also thought that it might be a bit overwhelming against the cured trout. The trout was lovely, I really like cured oily fish, the eggs were perfectly poached (so much better than my sad efforts at home) and the lemon added a nice bit of zestiness to the whole meal. The hollandaise was lovely and creamy and I'd say it fitted with the cured fish but I was left thinking that there was probably a better option than hollandaise for this dish although I couldn't come up with one.

My last breakfast was at Anouk in Paddington. Paddington is another favourite Brisbane suburb of mine so I was more than happy to take a short cab ride and check out Anouk. I had read some great reviews and was anticipating awesomeness. I wasn't let down. The Anouk menu had lots and lots of great options and choosing was difficult but I finally decided on the Spring Whiting Pan Fried with Asparagus, White Anchovies, Chilli, Garlic and Toast. This turned out to be a great choice, obviously not your standard breakfast but I found it a great meal to start the day. Such a wonderful combination of flavours, subtle fishiness of the whiting, earthiness of the asparagus, with lovely lemon zestiness, salty anchovies and a little punch of chilli. There was something almost Vietnamese about the flavour combinations and of course that hit the bullseye on my sweet spot. I am a huge fan of whiting which harks back to when we used to stay at my grandparents house on Bribie Island and Grandma would cook up fried whiting fillets that Keitho had caught that morning. It was always accompanied by Grandma's super special creamy curry sauce. Its my earliest memory of eating so much that I was actually in serious discomfort afterwards.

As I said above I really enjoyed my time in Brisbane but I wouldn't be a true ex Queenslander now living in Melbourne without having a bit of a dig at my old home state so here goes. One thing that I have always found a bit odd is the giant bowls of coffee that some of the cafes sell in Brisbane. I first saw this a few years ago and thought it was quite amusing. Maybe its an American influence, I really have no idea. On this trip to Brisbane my dining companion ordered one of these bowls of coffee and this one seemed even bigger than anything I'd seen previously. (check out the size comparison with the iPhone) I have to say that all of the coffee I enjoyed in Brisbane was of a high standard which is great but at no point did I feel the need to slurp up a giant bowl of it. I mean, where will it end? At the current rate of growth you will soon be able to get a cappuccino served in a goldfish bowl!