I just love it when you find a restaurant that does good, honest, hearty food for a ridiculously decent price. The Taste of Korchi is such a place - an unassuming little Korean/Chinese restaurant in a strip of shops that sways very much to an ethnic beat. I don’t know what the heck Korchi is…but whatever it is, it tastes pretty darn good!

The rain was coming down in buckets when we made the dash from car to restaurant. As we stamped the water from our boots and relaxed into the warm spicy air, we noticed the place was nearly full, and it was only 5pm on a Sunday.

The place is not that much to look at. In fact the word that comes to mind is “polite”. It is inoffensive and pleasing, yet not embracingly familiar in its ambience. The staff too were extremely polite and efficient, although a little cheerful banter wouldn’t have gone astray.

But on to the food.

First up was a tasty round of Goon-Man-Do, fried dumplings filled with minced pork and vegetables. They were juicy and flavoursome, and surprisingly, not masked by a plethora of spices. This afforded one the clean taste of freshly minced pork (none of that sausage mince slime) with real vegetable dice and no gratuitous use of cabbage extender. The pastry was crisp and tender and obviously cooked in fresh oil at the correct temperature. The dipping sauce was a little watery and lacklustre in comparison. I felt something a little heavier, sweeter and/or spicier might have been a better accompaniment.

Next up for me was Yuk kae Jang. When I ordered this dish the waitress looked at me somewhat quizzically and asked “Very very spicy. Very hot. Ok?”. I just grinned. Bring it on!

Yuk kae Jang is a hot spicy blend of beef soup and mixed vegetables. It came sizzling in a cast iron bowl, kept safe from cold hands by a neat wooden box. There was definite MOO to this dish, it is a hearty beef broth and make no mistake about it. Tinged ochre with the most amazing assortment of chilli and spices, my nasal cavities opened to full on the first mouthful. Sinusitis suffers - I have found your cure. So in I delved, chopsticks in one hand and big soupspoon ladle in the other. The spicy depths revealed glass noodles, bean shoots, carrots, spring onions, mushrooms and egg. There was a slurry of pulpy spices at the bottom - ginger, garlic, lemongrass and who knows what else. This is a dish that I will certainly crave on cold winter nights.

As per Korean tradition, the dish was accompanied by boiled rice and kimchi, which are pickles. For a history / proper definition / story / use of, go here.

I was most impressed with a sweet lotus root kimchi, which is in a bowl directly to the left of the boiled rice above. The balance and depth of sweetness vs. savouriness was just amazing. I haven’t had something quite so pleasantly tasty for quite some time.

My dinner partner had the Jjam bbong, which is a spicy seafood and vegetable soup. As with the beef soup, this broth was pure taste of the sea. With generous portions of prawns, mussels, clams, squid and octopus, it too was very stomach warming (…and super spicy!).

The whole lot cost us $28.00. The kimchi and green tea were free. And if you’re not a greedy guts (ahem…like me), then this seriously could have served four people.

When a cake has to be made and there isn’t an ounce of flour in the house (well…er…the pancakes for breakfast kind of used it all up!), then one has to go the flourless option. I had bits and pieces of everything yet nothing to make a full recipe of anything - so in came a bit of improvisation. And I was kind of pleased (…and surprised) by the results. A tasty bit of moist cakey goodness indeed.

Giuchie Giuchie Lady Marmalade Cake
2 Oranges
2 Mandarins
1 Lemon
6 Eggs
250g Sugar
200g Raw Almonds
100g Raw Pepitas
100g Raw Walnuts
1 tsp Baking Powder

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celcius and grease/line 2 x 20cm ish tins with baking paper.

Place oranges, mandarins and lemon into a pot of water. Cover with a cartouche (which is basically just scrunched up baking paper that stops evaporation of too much liquid) and simmer on high for around 2 hours.

I didn’t have any almond meal in the house, so I made my own. You can go the whole hog and blanch the almonds for a couple of minutes in hot boiling water (…and rub them together in a tea towel to remove skins), but heck, almond skin has got to be healthy, right? So just bung the almonds and, because I didn’t have enough, raw pepitas and walnuts, into a food processor. Blitz until finely mealed or thereabouts. I actually left some nice chunky bits for a bit of texture.

When the oranges/mandarins/lemon have finished cooking and are coolish to the touch, remove the seeds and the bellybutton (what the heck do you call that thing?), and blitz in a food processor.

Beat the eggs and sugar in an electric mixer till pale, creamy and ribbon like (nb. you can see me taking a photo in the reflection of the mixer!)

Mix the citrus sludge, nut meal/baking powder and the eggy stuff together. Pour into greased lined tins and bake at 190 degree Celcius for about an hour. A skewer should come out clean and the cake will spring back when poked (gently of course!).

Tasting Notes
The cake orignally went by the name of Flourless Citrus Cake. But my friend T commented that it tasted just like marmalade. What I like about it is that it doesn’t taste “orange flavoured”. It just tastes full on orange. And it’s super-moist and really light.

We had it served warm with vanilla bean ice-cream, but it would also go well with cream fraiche or greek yogurt. It also kicks ass with hot luscious custard.

Apollo Bay is a lovely little seaside town down the Great Ocean Road along the southwest coast of Victoria. I decided to head down for the weekend, and was lucky enough to be in town for the Apollo Bay Music Festival - pure fluke. Anyway, the weather was pretty horrendous (intermittent bouts of rain/hail/sunshine), but as you can see by the photo below, it provided a nice little rainbow over the Apollo Bay EcoBeach YHA Backpackers where I stayed.

Every Saturday morning between 9am - 1pm there is a market which sells local crafts and produce. I was so impressed with the quality of one particular purveyor, I couldn’t help but snap a few shots. And despite the brisk breeze, the backdrop of the ocean was well worth the extra layers of clothes.

I just love the brown paper bags with their tops rolled dow. It is such an appealing way to display fruit and veg. And check out the pile of butternuts. Some tasty winter soup there!

And how great are these organic chilli strings? You can use them fresh or dry, dependent on how long it takes you to work up that firecracker-like fuse.

Melbourne appears to overwhelmed by Pocky at the moment. These salty chocolate treats can be found in every vending machine from schools and workplaces to Flinders Street Station. Walk into any Asian Grocer and you will be inundated with a plethora of flavours - almond crunch chocolate, pudding pocky, black and latte, mousse royal milk tea and even pumpkin pocky.

Pocky is designed to melt at 36.6 degrees celcius - which is human body temperature. Therefore the chocolate melts in your mouth (…or in your hand) and you’re left with a salty crunchy pretzel within. Mmm.

This flavour, amusingly titled “Men’s”, is probably my favourite. I won’t ponder the name too much. But as I am such a sucker for anything dark chocolate, I’ll overlook it.

Ok. Perhaps I’m a little infatuated with making jam at the moment. So here’s another one to add to the list.

Quince, Ginger & Lemongrass Jam
4 Quinces
4 slices Ginger
2 stalks Lemongrass
3 quills Cinnamon
Sugar (as per method below)
Water (as per method below)

Peel and remove seeds/core from quinces and place peelings/seeds into a pot. Barely cover with water and simmer for 30-45 minutes. It was suggested to put the remaining fruit in acidulated (ie. lemon infused) water to stop them browning whilst the peels are cooking. As you can see, that really doesn’t work that well. But it doesn’t matter as in the end the cooked fruit is rather reddish/brown anyway. Whilst the peelings cook further chop the fruit into a small dice.

Strain peel and add liquid to diced fruit in a fresh pot. Dispose of peel as it is no longer required (the peelings contain pectin which assists the jam to set).

Weigh the diced fruit/liquid mixture and and measure as much sugar on the side. Add the ginger, lemongrass and cinnamon to the fruit mixture. Cook for 30 minutes and then add the sugar. Keep cooking and stirring till the mixture darkens/thickens and gels on a cold plate. Tip: Make sure the mixture doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan, although I must confess the little caramelly bits make it taste awesome!

Skim any foam and bottle into sterilised jars.

Tasting Notes

The jam set really really well. In fact, probably too well as I’m quite fond of runnier jams. Taste wise, the ginger and lemongrass compliment the fragrancy of the quinces. A good combination, but one that won’t be an eternal favourite.

It doesn’t take much to keep me from a Farmers market - not even Melbourne’s crappy rainy weather. Anyway, this particular one is held on the third Saturday of the month between 8.30am - 1pm at the Gasworks Arts Park in Port Melbourne. I love to sample wonderful homegrown products and chat to farmers/artisans/producers.

Check out these heritage pumpkins! They look great…but I wonder how they taste?

I finally sampled a lime cupcake from Life’s Sweet. I’ve spied this company at most of the foodie events in the last few months, but the $4.00 price tag was a slight dissuasion. Alas, this time I crumbled. I could not resist the tantalising frosting and the lovely smile of the lass behind the bench. Anyway, the cupcake was vanilla, quite dense and tooth sticky. The frosting was waxy - but I guess it needs to be for preservation reasons. Anyway the website is rather cool. Make sure you read the about us section, ie. their vision and inspiration. Quite an interesting read.

Also purchased some chocolate bread from Solebake. Made with dutch cocoa and chocolate bits, it was really moorish whilst not being sweet. It would be perfect toasted with some marscapone or ricotta cheese and mascerated strawberries. Yummm. Unfortunately I didn’t have any of these items at hand, so peanut butter was a worthy substitution.

I was also pleased to see some lovely jams / chutneys / relishes. I didn’t buy any though, as I have a cupboard full of my own attempts. Ahem.

Need I say more? Hmmm. Probably less