Other People’s Kitchens

Moochowchow

I was impressed on a recent visit to Ponsonby’s MooChowChow, whose menu had recently had a refresh. While there’s certainly a fusion element to the Thai-inspired food there, the balance of flavours is for the most part very authentic. Standout dishes we had were a red curry with terakihi and clams, which was warmly spicy, very citrusy and only had the faintest ouch of sweetness. Wile the caramelised pork hock was unctuous and delicious, there was a very sweet element to it to balance the vinegar and it was possibly just a little too sweet for a sour-ist like me to want to eat more than a small serving. The green papaya salad uses tamarind, rather than the traditional lime, for sourness, but was equally moreish and the kind of textural masterpiece I always seek out.

The bill for two, for a lot more food than we could get through, plus a yummy cocktail (The Bloody Wallbank – a Mary with a Thai twist) and a glass of wine, was just over $100 which seems very good value. We’ll definitely be going back and I hope to find that delectable fish curry still on the menu.

23 Ponsonby Rd

Phone 360 6262

A French fling

Perched in the courtyard of The French Cafe, sipping an aperitif is easily one of the nicest ways to kick off a balmy summer’s eve in Auckland. Especially when that courtyard has recently been renovated with the help of landscape designer Xanthe White, and you sit surrounded by espalier pear trees creeping up the brick walls, and vertical planters from which spills generous summer produce that might very well end up on your plate later on at the dinner table. The heirloom tomatoes certainly did, in a magnificent dish where they were both made into a gazpacho granita (its pink hue belied a taste that was so very red!) and sat alongside with lobster tails and ricotta.

I was very lucky to start two evening this way, this summer. And I daydream of ways to make it a regular occurrence. In any season. Last month, my husband and I went along for a meal – the chef’s 8-course tasting, and later in the month I was invited to the launch of the new, wonderfully elegant private dining area at the back of the courtyard, The French Kitchen. It used to be a tailors. It used to be dark and dank, they said. And now it’s light, airy and somehow calming.

It’s enough to make me want to get married again – just so I could book the space. It takes up to 30 or so guests – the perfect excuse for a small reception! It has its own large Electrolux kitchen where owner and executive chef Simon Wright cooks right there in front of guests, using all domestic-spec appliances. His wife and co-owner Creghan Molloy-Wright leads the front of house here and in the restaurant, and if you get a chance, engage her on the topic of the garden – her enthusiasm for the project is a pleasure to witness. A small group of us enjoyed a 6-course menu there to showcase the new space, in what was only – if I remember rightly – the second ever PR event The French Cafe has done. They like to keep things on the D-L, these guys.

A few weeks earlier my husband and I had dined inside the restaurant, which has also had a few design touch-ups. The lighting, I think, is just that little bit more ambient than it once was, making the famously ninja-like waitstaff even more so. We were blown away by each and every dish we had, but my very favourite was the egg-yolk ravioli which featured, alongside the large yolk which burst in a perfect marigold river – smoked potato, jamon Iberico, asparagus, peas and parmesan. Insanely delicious fine-dining comfort food, and a concept that would work in any season.

Simon Wright and his team are using the very best of seasonal ingredients. I know every chef says the same, but right now at The French Cafe, you can taste it, you really can. And it definitely helps that you can see it, some of it anyway, growing out there in the courtyard; our senses are, of course, intricately linked. Simon Wilson has just reviewed The French Cafe in the latest issue of Metro. It’s rather gushing, which he doesn’t do very much of at all. If you’ve got a special occasion coming up, this would be my place to book right now. And by goodness if you can get there while the romance of summer is still in the air that courtyard of theirs, do.

The French Kitchen dining room, photo courtesy of Charlie Smith

Tomato – melon, ricotta, lobster, granita (minus the lobster – a vegetarian version)

Wahetian way

We’ve been lucky enough to spend a bit of time this summer on Waiheke island, one of my favourite places to eat and drink. There’s just something inherently relaxing about the place which just makes everything taste better. That, and the fact there are a number of great places to eat and talented food producers on the island. Here are a few of the places we enjoyed on our last visit.

Man O’ War Vineyard Tasting Room

Worth putting up with the ridged, dirt road that leads you there, Man O’ War sits right by the water on the eastern end of Waiheke, and has a heap – 76 – small plantings dotted round the 150 acres of land there and on neighbouring Ponui Island. Each plot has its own microclimate, they say. The tasting room has only been open for a short time but it looks comfy on its waterfront patch, a though it’s been there for decades. This is a great place to take the kids as you can sit right out by the beach and watch them play while you enjoy a glass of wine (tastings are free and a great way to decide which bottle to order) and a tasting platter (nothing very amazing, but a nice way to taste some local products). We fell in love with the Valhalla chardonnay from the Flagship range.

The Oyster Inn

This new kid on the block has been getting all the attention of late, but it’s not all hot air. The all-day eating establishment also boasts a private dining room and 3 boutique rooms for accommodation, all packaged up in a light, breezy Cape Cod look that manages to escape being twee.

We’ve had lunch and dinner there, from which I’d pluck the spaghetti alla vongole as my fave dish – though the spiced squid was pretty darn good too, with its dipping sauce a rich, warm mix of coriander root, kaffir lime and other such SE-Asian flavours. The kibbelings, described as Dutch fish nuggets, were the only not so fantastic dish we had. Made from the offcuts of fish fillets from the kitchen, the batter was a bit too heavy and dark and the tartare sauce just didn’t have any punch in it. A good option for the kids, though – ours liked them – and I like that they’re using the bit of fish that might usually be wasted (fillets are inherently so wasteful, aren’t they?) Another favourite dish at The Oyster Inn was a special of the day panzanella, with delicious heirloom toms and a nicely sharp red wine vinaigrette: the perfect thing on a hot, hot day after doing the Headland Sculpture on the Gulf trail.

This is my new go-to place on the island, somewhere I can see us going for a meal every time we’re on Waiheke.

Cable Bay Winebar

In possession of one of the most killer views the country over, the wine bar at Cable Bay is the best place to head to watch the sun set over the city and feel smug about not being there. We tasted a few of their wines before settling on the viognier, a brilliant wine which matched the evening out there perfectly.

The eerie cloud formations looked like extra islands out there in the gulf, as lounged on big beanbag chairs on the expanse of lawn that stretches across to the water view, framed by flowering flax bushes. Too pretty. My question is, who goes to the restaurant? It was empty bar one table on the night we went, whereas the wine bar was full. The restaurant has been the subject of mixed reviews and until something happens to change that, it seems a sad kind of waste of one of the most amazing venues for a restaurant in the country.

Delicious Dishes

This joint on the corner of Dominion Rd and Wiremu St had never really appealed to me until I found myself one Friday evening after work after a quick family takeaway, and put off my the long queue at the perennially, and deservedly popular Barilla.

The signage boasts $7, $8, $9 – and that’s what you’ll find all over the menu of this Northern Chinese joint. Everything, bar a few hand-written specials, is $7, $8, or $9 a dish. Amazingly cheap – and, it turns out, great value, because the food is good. Better than good. Some dishes are great. The shredded kelp in chilli oil, all $7 worth, is a big dish of glorious texture and flavour. Julienned cucumber topped with a mound of shredded kelp, chopped coriander and toasted sesame seeds. The dressing does have chilli oil in it – but not so much that the dish feels oily at all – it’s balanced by black vinegar and, at a guess, a bit of sesame oil. Utterly addictive stuff.

Do get the squid in spicy salt, too – it’s crispy-coated and surrounded by crunchy lightly fried onion, carrot, celery and more garlic than you’ve eaten in the past month. Beef with cumin is pretty intense on that earthy, woodsy spice – great mopped up with mounds of steamed rice. One dish I search the menu for at any decent Chinese restaurant is fried green beans (often called French or round beans with olives and pork mince). At Delicious Dishes it’s somewhat mysteriously called dry kidney beans. Order it. It’s umami in the extreme and great accompanied by a crisp lager. And, my kid’s favourite – hand-cut noodles with chicken and mushroom in a very chickeny broth.

Best of all, you won’t need to queue for a table here. Yet.

Thai Excursion

Today’s post comes to you from Phuket, a destination I’m hoping to prove is more than beaches, buckets and English breakfasts in 34 degree heat. This is our first ‘family’ holiday – that is, a holiday with two under-4′s in tow. It would’ve been a lot easier to skip over to a Pacific Island, given that getting to Thailand involves around 14 hours flying time from NZ, but I, and my husband, do have an undying obsession with SE Asian cuisine that makes it very hard to look to other beachy destinations.

Previous trips to Thailand have involved a lot of ‘intrepid’ journeying round, but long bus or train journeys really are hard to contemplate when you factor in the kids – now the lure of a kids’ club and a big playground is more important. But at the same time, we want good Thai nosh, not the bland, toned down stuff you can find anywhere round the world. So keep following me over the next wee while to see what I might find.

Thus far I’ve done one cooking class, with Chef Pachon at the beautifully appointed Dusit Thani in the Laguna Complex. Laguna is a wee way north of the madness of Patong, at Bang Tao Bay, about 20 minutes drive from the airport. Set on an abandoned tin mine that was painstakingly regenerated, it’s now home to several 5-star resorts, of which we have stayed at Dusit Thani and, across the lagoon, Angsana.

Anyway, the cooking class: I’d recommend this class for true beginners, as for me it just wasn’t a challenge, but I did learn a few tips that I found useful. This is one of the things I love about about taking a few different classes, you get different tips and tricks from every instructor – some of those tips, of course, clash – but that’s culinary art for you.

With Pachon I made laab gai, tom yum goong, roast duck red curry and bananas in a coconut sauce. I’ll post recipes at some stage but the tips I came away with were:

-When making tom yum, gently fry off the aromatic ingredients (galangal, lemongrass) before adding the stock, as this draws the flavour out faster. As soon as the stock hits the pan it’s infused with the fragrant deliciousness.

-When making a curry, no need to fry the curry paste off in hot oil, just do so in a little of the coconut milk – there’s enough fat content in it to do the same job and get all the flavour from the paste incorporated into the dish.

-In a curry, if you add pineapple or grapes (as is traditional in a duck curry, to balance the rich meat), you’ll need less sugar to balance the salt, sour and spicy, as this will come from the fruit. The pineapple will also tenderise whatever meat you are cooking with.

-Thais love banana desserts like the simple bananas in coconut sauce that we made, and it’s best to use ladyfinger bananas, as they hold their shape much better during cooking.

Here’s some photos of those dishes:

Pop-up Dining Auckland

Talented, adventurous and rearing to go, chef Ben Barton recently returned to his hometown AK after many years working on bling-bling boats and ski resorts. Back in January he decided to have a crack at starting up a regular pop-up dining scene, and four months down the track he has successfully hosted meals that have included a drunken Mexican brunch, a mole night (as in the Mexican sauce, not the lumps on your back), vegan good enough to covert you, and modern Chinese. The latter has partly been inspired by the excellent, MSG-free but flavour packed fare of Mission in San Fran, the city previously Ben called home. Ben has also run a class on butchering a pig, and seeks to introduce diners to the delights of such things as pig’s tongue and crispy pig’s ear.

This was the theme last Saturday night, when Ben and his small team hired Crave cafe in Morningside for a night of modern takes on Chinese favourites – a category sorely lacking in Auckland’s food geography. The menu included bao – buns filled with pulled pork, sriracha and hoisin; tea-smoked eel on buckwheat soba (amazing); Brussels sprouts with Chinese sausage (won this Brussels sprouts naysayer over) and quite a lot more. Punters hear about the events via the facebook page and the meetup.com website, and pay cash on the night. Prices are extremely reasonable, around $40 for a multi-course meal, and the venues are usually BYO. It’s all good fun – you get to meet a bunch of strangers who are all interested in food and eating a bit more adventurously than you can do in restaurants. There’s usually a DJ or some live music going on, and Ben pops out to listen to any feedback on his food.

It can be a bit of a “logistical nightmare”, laughs Ben, but catch him in the kitchen and he looks like he’s pretty high on the adrenaline of it all. “I’ve found there’s a foodie community in Auckland looking for something different”, he says.”And for me, this is a way to make cooking fun, creative and interesting again”.

Get thee to a Pop-up Dining event soon. And watch this space, as Ben looks for a permanent space of his own.

Ben Barton – photo by Frank Coyle

Mussel Fritters at Pat’s Place

Good Friday we decided on a whim to drive down to the Coromandel. Everywhere was booked out, of course, and when that’s the case, the helpful moteliers and B&B operators might refer you Pat. Pat lives right in the centre of the township and if you’re lucky, she might have a few spare beds you can use. If you’re even luckier, she might whip up a batch of her delicious mussel fritters, and some crumbed fresh snapper, and pop them on the large table in the semi-outdoors communal kitchen. If you’re triply lucky, the lovely Cook Islander couple in their late 60s, who visit the Coromandel for fishing trips any chance they get, might also be there. On the day we both left, they sent us off with an iced package of fresh snapper fillets. Huge fillets, they were, and I used them that night to make a raw snapper laab. Also staying were a South Indian family who heated up a selection of beautifully fragrant curries they had prepared at home, and another Indian family who stewed strong, milky tea on the stovetop. The place was like an international Food Court!

Pat tells me she makes hundreds of the mussel fritters at an annual local event to raise money for kids with heart problems – I’ll try to find details and post here. I tried making some mussel fritters based on Pat’s ones again at home, here’s a rough guide – I wasn’t measuring at all so perhaps just start with a half cup of flour and adjust liquid ratio from there. My two girls devoured these, and it’s easier for them to eat mussels this way when they’re chopped into bits:

Steam and open your mussels and remove the beards. Cut them (using scissors is easiest) into smallish pieces. In a bowl, mix enough flour and beer to make a thickish batter. Season with salt and white pepper. Add either chopped spring onions or parsley for colour and flavour, and finely sliced shallots. Mix in mussel pieces. Cook in spoonfuls on a hot, greased heavy-bottomed frying pan, until golden on both sides. serve hot, with a wedge of lemon and dipping sauces, if you like.

Pat's Coromandel mussel fritters and crumbed snapper

My kids are crazy about mussels

Another tasty Coromandel find: roadside stall with sweet red grapes, $1 a bunch.

My Kitchen Express Taiwanese Cuisine

Dining last Friday night at a very busy New Flavour in a very busy Balmoral, the dishes were taking a little longer than usual to appear from the kitchen. My one year old was not happy about this. She had food envy: she watched in barely disguised fury as mounds of steaming hand-cut noodles, platters of fat white dumplings and iron plates of sizzling beef were delivered to neighbouring tables. The barely disguised fury turned into open hatred at the injustice of it all, so I scooped her up and out into the night for a bit of distraction till our food arrived. Next door, I stalked the constant stream of dishes leaving the street-front kitchen of My Kitchen Express Taiwanese Cuisine to head upstairs to customers, and vowed I’d be back to sample them.

The open, street-front kitchen is the legacy of this location having previously been a fish and chop shop for many years. The new owners have, seemingly oddly when you first consider it, opted to keep deep fried on the menu – fish and chips, fried chicken, washed down with half a litre of fizz if you opt for a combo. But that’s not what you’re here for. You’re here to have a crack at what the business calls, “the foods one would find at a Taiwanese night market”: an array of quickly prepared, piping hot dishes that span Chinese, Japanese and Taiwan’s own cuisine.

I hadn’t clicked till last Friday that My Kitchen Express isn’t just a takeaway joint – the staircase to the left leads to a large dining room upstairs that is double the size of most others in Balmoral. Help yourself to cutlery and roasted barley tea and sit back for about 2 minutes till your food arrives from downstairs. Yesterday for lunch we asked what was good on the menu – we wanted something spicy, and a soup with dumplings. Kung Pao Chicken was most enthusiastically encouraged, so we ordered it. I was adamant I wanted the Hot and Sour Soup with Dumplings, although the shop madam didn’t look too convinced about my choice – trying to steer me towards the teriyaki-style dishes which are so, so not me. She was right, in a way – the soup wasn’t the finest example. Nice balance of hot and sour, but there was some mysterious, slightly wet dog aroma about it – the kind you can get from fish sauce if you’re not accustomed to it. Could have been the black fungus, perhaps, the crunchy texture of which was, however, a delight. Kung Pao chicken was spot-on: spiked with plenty of dried red chilli while at the same time sweet and salty and littered with roasted peanuts. The orange segment that is served alongside your food is a nice way to refresh you palate at the end of the meal.

A very filling lunch yesterday totalled $18.50. I’ll certainly be back to explore the menu further.

My Kitchen Express Taiwanese Cuisine, 543 Dominion Rd, Balmoral, phone 6309600.

Depot is the Metro Restaurant of the Year 2012

The ROTY party continued at Depot into the wee hours…

Congratulations to Al Brown and his supreme award-winning eatery Depot, and all the other winners from the awards ceremony last night at St Matthew’s in the City.

Here’s a press release from Pead PR with the full list of winners:

WELLINGTON CHEF SCOOPS AUCKLAND AWARDS

Al Brown’s Depot Eatery & Oyster Bar supreme winner of Metro / Audi Restaurant of the Year

Restaurateur / chef Al Brown’s Depot Eatery & Oyster Bar is the winner of the supreme award in the Metro / Audi Restaurant of the Year Awards 2012.

The awards have been announced tonight (Monday 23 April) at an official ceremony in Auckland.

As well as the Supreme Award, Depot has also taken out Best New Restaurant and Best Casual Bistro. Brown – who hails from the capital city – has been awarded Audi Progressive Restaurateur of the Year.

Awards judge and Metro magazine editor Simon Wilson says Depot has changed the dining scene.

“We’re getting more casual and Depot leads the charge here, providing a great dining experience in a relaxed atmosphere and some of the fine dining restaurants are getting more casual in response.

“Al has taken Kiwi cuisine and shown just how well it can work in a restaurant. The New Zealand-ness of his menu contrasts sharply with many other restaurants and that’s a great thing. He’s shown us that the food we all love to eat on the beach or around the barbecue can be cooked so well that it’s great to eat in a restaurant too,” Wilson says.

“Lots of chefs say they do this kind of thing, but no one understands it or does it as well as Depot. The simplicity of it is often the best part.”

Clooney has won Best Fine Dining Restaurant, something awards judges noted with excitement in light of a disappointing 2011 for the Freeman’s Bay restaurant.

“They have picked themselves up and come out on top; very impressive,” says Wilson.

Restaurant Personality of the Year – the only category decided by public vote – has been won by newcomer Ganesh Raj of Kumeu’s The Tasting Shed.

And best dish went to the fish soup at Roxy with the judges describing it as “simply a joy”.

“It doesn’t look like fish soup, but chef Sean Marshall’s superbly cooked fish and shellfish, served with a cold jellied bouillabaisse, is a taste revelation.”

The awards are judged by a panel of 12 experienced food industry people – a combination of critics and professionals. The bookings are normally made under false names, the visits are not announced and all meals are paid for.

Wilson says that the key question in judging is ‘How much do we want to come back?’. “Competition is fierce right now with new venues opening up, it seems, each week. The judging process is rigorous – it doesn’t matter who you know, if the restaurant doesn’t stack up, it won’t make the grade.”

Judges were impressed by a resurgence of traditional and classic foods on menus.

“The fashion for local and homemade – freshly shucked oysters, home-smoked flavours, heirloom tomatoes – is catching and nostalgic. Depot is a leader in this trend, and so, in a fine-dining way, are some of the upmarket places like Merediths and Clooney.”

The winners are:

Supreme winner: Depot Eatery & Oyster Bar

Best fine dining: Clooney

Runner-up: The French Café

Best smart dining: Cibo

Runner-up: O’Connell St Bistro

Best upmarket bistro: The Engine Room

Runners-up: Ponsonby Rd. Bistro, Pure

Best casual bistro: Depot Eatery & Oyster Bar

Runner-up: Coco’s Cantina

Best Asian: Cocoro

Runner-up: Ebisu

Best Italian: Totó
Runner-up: Poderi Crisci

Best rural: Poderi Crisci

Runner-up: Casita Miro

Audi progressive restaurateur of the year: Al Brown, Depot Eatery & Oyster Bar

Runner-up: Sid Sahrawat (SIDART)

Best chef: Michael Meredith (Meredith’s)

Best service: The French Café

Runner-up: Coco’s Cantina

Best dish: Fish soup at Roxy

Best drinks list: The French Café

Runner-up: O’Connell St Bistro

Best short drinks list: Cocoro

Runner-up: Molten

Restaurant personality of the year: Ganesh Raj, The Tasting Shed

Best new restaurant: Depot Eatery & Oyster Bar

Much Ado over Macarons

Among all the hype over macarons these past few years, I must say I’ve been a bit of a naysayer. I’d never really understood the big deal over what, to me, tends to be a sickly sweet confection lacking in the textural delight one might expect. Then I tried the macarons from La Voie Francaise and, boom! They’re pretty good. Here’s a photo of the berry one, basking in the April sun – blackberry? Boysenberry? I can’t quite remember, sorry. The chocolate ones are very fine, too. These macarons were not as saccharine as those in my past, and possessed a crust to crow about. So now I get it. A good macaron is something to swoon over.

Eats by Anna

confessions of a kitchen magpie

Category Archives: Other People’s Kitchens