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A few years ago I contributed to a great little guide called Hide & Seek Melbourne, which showcased some of the more intriguing and hidden places in our great town. So when they decided to do a second version, both @ElegantGourmand and I said “hell yes…let’s contribute again!” This time round Explore Australia decided to publish a series of four books; Feeling Peckish, Hit the Streets, Night Owl and Treasure Trove. You can find the series in most major bookshops and newsagents.
To help celebrate the launch, Explore Australia are holding it’s very own launch party!
When: Tuesday 1 March, from 6pm till 9pm
Where: 24 Moons, AC/DC Lane (off Flinders Lane), Melbourne
Who: Anyone! Tell your girlfriend, boyfriend, brothers, sisters, mates or work colleagues – just maybe not your gran
Price: $20 for all advanced ticket sales before Monday 28 February at 4pm - book your ticket here, or $30 for ticket sales on the night (if there are any left!)
What you get: A goodie bag containing a free copy of one of the four books (your choice), one complimentary cocktail, finger food and chances to win other prizes
How to attend: Book your ticket!
If you’d like to read up on some of the unique places featured in these books, check out Jeroxie, Iron Chef Shellie, Literary Minded and Sarahs Style Emporium, who took part in a special Bloggers Hide & Seek tour of Melbourne. Thanks for coming along guys. Even I discovered a few new places!
A colleague from work (thanks Matty!) has been sharing the bounty from his very productive garden, and I’ve been lucky to be the recipient of some firm-but-perfect-for-jam apricots (which I haven’t blogged, but gee, turned out great!), some beautiful port coloured plums, which will soon be made into a spicy plum sauce (yes, I will blog), and just yesterday, a lovely couple of sprays of cherry tomatoes.
Now when I was younger I took part in many a passata making day with the Italian grandparents, and I remembered that Nonna used to bottle some of the smaller tomatoes whole. Unfortunately I couldn’t remember how she did them, so the interwebs came to the rescue.
Basically the process is rather simple, and starts with preheating your oven to 120 degrees. Then get yourself a clean, dry jar and stuff it full of cherry tomatoes, which have been pricked a few times with a toothpick. Season each layer with a small pinch of salt and sugar, and add in a couple of cloves of garlic, some bay (or basil, thyme – whatever you have to hand). Squish them in as much as you can without breaking up the tomatoes too much. Top up with some water to about a centimetre from the top of the jar, and then add a further glug of olive oil. Place the jar/s on a baking tray lined with cardboard, and rest the lids on top of the jars (but don’t screw them on). Cook for 45 minutes until the juices are simmering (and potentially running down the sides and into the cardboard) and remove from the oven. With a couple of protective tea towels at hand, screw the lids on tight and invert (ie. turn upside down) until the jars seal and cool down.
They should last about 6 months in your cupboard, and I’m sure will make a wonderful sugo in the winter months when tomatoes aren’t so readily available.
3/51 Waterfield Street, Coburg
Phone (03) 9354 0294
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When it comes to cuisines in Coburg, what readily springs to your mind, dear reader? Lebanese? Check. Turkish? Tick. Kebab joints? Present. Shanghainese? Err, say what? However, strange as it may be, a little place called Wang Wang Dumpling is serving up magnificent Shanghainese fare in an otherwise Arabic culinary zone. Located in Coburg central, next to the very fine Al Alamy Lebanese grocer/cafe, look out for the sunny, smiley logo of this cheap and cheerful eatery.
A plate of fried Shanghainese vegetarian noodles kicked off proceedings. The handmade noodles were very tasty – springy and soft. They were accompanied by cloud ear and button mushrooms, carrots and bok choy. The dish had great wok hei and went down a treat.
Wang Wang’s house made chilli oil adds a fiery kick to any dish. The chilli was seriously good, so much so that mum asked to buy some after our meal!
The house specialty of Shanghai dumplings come with a variety of fillings. We ordered both the pork and vegetarian pot sticker dumplings. Wang Wang’s version is smaller than other Shanghainese paces, but they were damn tasty! The pork dumplings were succulent, with a perfect casing that was not too gluggy. On a previous visit, I’ve also tried the steamed pork dumplings and they were very good as well.
The vego dumplings had a tasty filling consisting (possibly) of mushroom, chive, tofu, carrot, and onion.
More noodles, and this time we sampled the soup version of their Tan Tan Noodles. Topped with chopped peanuts and pork mince, the noodles swam in a spicy chilli oil broth. So spicy, yet tasty!
Another noodle dish we tried was a very tasty pork and preserved vegetable soup noodle. It had long shards of bamboo shoot, and bobbed with little green soy beans.
A plate of fried taro cakes finished off our meal. They were crispy and crunchy, not too oily and filled with a deliciously sweet yam paste.
I can’t wait to go back and try their other dishes, like their fried chicken and Shanghainese cold dishes, some of which are on display at the front of the restaurant. The prices are also ridiculously cheap; all of the above cost less than $50!! So hop on the number 19 tram up Sydney Road, or take the train to Coburg station. Wang Wang is not just a displaced Chinese restaurant. The food is seriously good enough to warrant a trip up north.
One of the many things I love about my husband is the excitement of learning about a whole new food culture. Danny grew up in Singapore, where one would be just as likely to have a plate of kway chap (braised flat rice noodles) or roti prata with a small bowl of curry for breakfast, whereas I would have just had a piece of toast or some cereal. And the idea of comfort food for us is different (although somewhat similar) as well. Danny’s Mum would always make him a very simple home cooked plain rice porridge, sometimes seasoned with Bovril and other accoutrements. Funnily enough, my comfort food dish was also rice-based; my Nonna used to make a rice porridge in chicken stock, seasoned with parmesan cheese and egg. Yum!
So with Dan feeling somewhat poorly from a cold the other day, I cooked us up a big pot of what is familiar and comforting to him.
I used a ratio of 1 part rice to 10 parts cold water. Put everything into a heavy bottomed pot and bring up to the boil, stirring every now and then to make sure the rice doesn’t stick. Reduce to a simmer and cook until the rice gets soft and starts to break apart (approx 25-30 minutes). Alternatively, a rice cooker with a congee setting will do the trick as well.
As you can imagine, plain rice porridge can be well…plain. It really is a peasant dish, where the poor would extend their meagre rice rations by using this cooking method. In Japan, one would perhaps use a piquant umeboshi (pickled plum) in their okayu (rice porridge) to give it a hit of flavour, and as mentioned earlier, Danny would often flavour his with Bovril. For our meal today though, we went vegetarian with the preserved/fermented bean curd, a pungent extraordinarily cheese-like substance that is mind-blowingly good. Let me just say a little bit goes a LONG way. To eat, you can serve one or two blocks on the side of the porridge, and you can break off a little piece with your chopsticks, and then consume with a mouthful of soup. To freshen the palate, the pickled lettuce in soy sauce adds a nice salty kick.
I also stir fried up some kang kung (water convulvulus), with some garlic and a couple of blocks of the fermented bean curd as well.
I dare say that this comfort dish will fast become a comfort dish for me as well.
31-37 Artemis Lane QV, Melbourne
Phone 03 9040 2000
( Show on map )
OK, so I read that Duck Duck Goose in QV was doing a Kyushu style ramen in the white side of the restaurant (drool). Furthermore, it boosted of a stock that’s been cooked for 16 hours (double drool). So naturally I had to go check it out immediately.
DDG has always been a bit of a hit and miss for me. They do a really tasty and great value teriyaki salmon with rice (which Mellie loves), and pretty good fried won tons. However, DDG lacks direction in the food for mine, adopting a mish-mash pan-Asian style that crosses from Hong Kong to Malaysia before detouring to Vietnam and Japan. The result is that not all of it works; a jack-of-all-trades means you’re a master of none.
So it was with the ramen ($18). It arrived with all the requisite components of Kyushu (or Hakata) ramen: a white broth, whitish charshu, thin yellow noodles, spring onions, and bean sprouts. However, alarm bells sounded when looking at the thinness of the broth and the lack of visible fat.
One sip confirm my suspicions. The broth had an OK not-too-porky taste, but was far too weak, bland and watery, with no real depth of flavour that a broth that’s been cooking for 16 hours ought to have. Strange. If they had meant for the customer to season the broth themselves, then where were the traditional accompaniments for Hakata ramen, such as crushed garlic, beni shoga (pickled ginger) and spicy pickled mustard greens (karashi takana)?
Which brings me to the noodles. They were way overcooked and were gluggy and doughy. They were edible but not much more than that.
All of this is a shame because the charshu is actually very very tasty. In fact, I would rank it as one of the best charshu’s in Melbourne. You get a generous amount, and they were sliced perfectly with just the right amount of fat. They literally just melted in your mouth. Such a shame that the rest of the dish was not up to scratch.
I really want to like DDG. They have a very interesting concept, the restaurant looks great and they have very flexible hours. However, I wish they would not try to be a jack-of-all trades as, for something like ramen, it is a fatal mistake as great noodles take specialised dedication to achieve a truly great flavour.
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