I Come From a Land Down Under! – Part 1

Various Eats in and Around Sydney, Australia

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Just a word of warning before I begin.  This post contains a list of seriously good eats from my home town of Sydney, Australia.  If you fear for your waistline stop reading here; otherwise enjoy!

I love returning home.  It's not just for my family and friends, but also for all the fantastic food that Sydney has to offer for the discerning palette; there are not too many other cities out there that can offer such a wide variety of cuisines from all corners of the globe at reasonable affordable prices!  Whenever I return to Sydney there are a few must visit places to go and fill your belly but when I'm back I always try to make it a point of at least trying somewhere new.

My trip back to Sydney this time around saw me playing host to not just the Chili Padi but two other dear friends of mine: Little Anne and Big Anne, one had visited Sydney before but I had hoped to share with them some of the sights, sounds and tastes from a Sydney-siders perspective.

So here we go, be prepared for a listing of my favorite Sydney eats!

Paddington Markets – Oxford Street, Sydney

Paddington Markets is typical of your Sydney weekend flea market; you’ve got a mix of designers who have made it, or looking to make it, but most importantly to me, you’ve got many a folk there serving up some good quality grub at reasonable prices!

We couldn’t resist we had to get our share of all things cheese steak, and despite it really being a mouthful it was good all the way down to the last bite!

But hey guess what?  I wasn’t quite done yet with the markets.. while the better half of this dynamic duo went looking for clothes and jewelry to  buy, I set my sights on the next thing to eat (it didn’t make me long to find mind you)!

This little tasty treat was a Belgian Chocolate with a Chocolate twist biscuit.. of course I had to share my little find.. though I think the thought of eating again within a few minutes of eating that roll was a little scary for some :)

Love at the Petersen’s

Sad to say for those of you unlucky to know the Petersen’s are missing out on something special.  We were invited over to my sister and brother in law’s house for a hamburger; nay not just a hamburger but the Petersen burger!  Hamburgers are good but having them cooked over a BBQ/hotplate they take on a different character and taste all the more nicer!

That coupled with some secret home made tomato sauce from Ben’s mom and well we were in burger heaven.

The Cupcake Bakery – Pitt Street Mall, Sydney

One thing that I really do miss about Australia are the affordable and delicious variety of cupcakes that are on offer.  Of late there has been a franchise that seem to have invaded Sydney; The Cupcake Bakery.  I was lucky enough to stumble upon this while I was walking around the Pitt Street Mall and promptly ordered a Tiramisu to satisfy my craving.

The cupcake was a precursor to what is a tradition of sorts for the Chili Padi and I; a trip to the Sydney Fish Markets.

Sydney Fish Markets – Pyrmont, Sydney

Fish, fish and more fish! A short tram ride out of the centre of Sydney and you find yourself at a place that is always busy with throng of people!

As I mentioned before, the Chili Padi and I always make it a point to come here and load up on cheap (most importantly) fresh oysters and sashimi!

Nothing beats tasting the sea with every bite of the seafood you buy on the spot to consume. It’s been a place I’ve been coming to since I was a wee tiny fella, it’s a place where you can appreciate all the good things on offer in your own back yard!

Needless to say we ate our share.. and then some.. all this lovely goodness for less than AUD50.. where in the world can you eat so much for so little?

Masuya – O’Connell Street, Sydney

I was introduced to the restaurant by a good friend of mine Trieu, who not too long before me leaving Sydney hadn’t really liked sushi and sashimi.  Oh how times have changed! I’ve wanted to bring the Chili Padi here for the longest of times, not only for their superb and reasonably priced food but for their excellent customer service as well; all the waiters and waitresses are Japanese (as are their cooks)!

Masuya’s serves delicious ala carte meals, but the order of the day was to dig into one of their set lunches.  This place is hugely popular with the CBD crowd for lunch, so I do suggest you go early!

I ordered myself the Shogun Bento, and as you can see it was quite an undertaking.  All the food is cooked upon order, so you’re guaranteed optimum yummiest and if you thought that I’d be sick of all the sashimi you’re horribly wrong.  Their fish is fresh and bursting with color and is still very very firm.

Sydney Fish Markets @ 5:00am (Pre-Xmas) – Pyrmont, Sydney

Let it be said that Sydney-siders love their seafood; to what lengths  though can only be explained by the following:  We woke up at 4:00am to get to the fish markets at 5:00am to do some pre-Christmas seafood shopping!  It was the firs time for the Chili Padi to see the organized chaos that happens around Christmas time and Easter every year.  A site which I am sure would bamboozle people the first time they get to experience it.

Let it be said there was a sea of people everywhere you went, clambering for that extra prawn or for that extra 1/2 dozen oysters.  To me it’s fun, its a tradition and at the end of the day something well worth the time; nothing but the freshest seafood.

When we finally did get home we took it upon ourselves to get all the food ready.. 3 dozen oysters, 3 kgs of Prawns, crabs, oodles and oodles of sashimi and seaweed!

Couple all that with some moschato wine, pork ribs salad, gravlax and a specially made cheese cake by the Chili Padi we had enough food to feed a small platoon!

Singapore Chili Crab – Prima Taste @ Dunk Place

What to do with left over crab from lunch?  Why not whip up a little bit of Singapore in Sydney?  That was the mission given to me by the folks at home.  Luckily on one of our previous trips back home we brought over some “cook at home” meals from Prima Deli.  I have to say it’s not too bad if you’re stuck for ingredients and a little homesick (per say).

To add a little fun to the whole thing I was able to borrow Ben’s welding mask.. to at least make it look like the chili crab was gonna be hot!

The dish turned out alright; sadly I had to use flower crabs as opposed to the huge Sri Lankan crabs that are commonly used here in Singapore.

Lindt Chocolat Cafe – Cockle Bay Wharf, Sydney

What better way to take a break from the traditional Boxing Day sale in the city than with a respite at the Lindt Chocolat Cafe at Cockle Bay Wharf.

You cannot go to the Lindt Chocolat Cafe without ordering their waffles at least once!  The ice cream combined with the chocolate sauce plus the waffle.. nom-elicious!

Being the greedy little pigs that we are, we couldn’t (well ok it was actually me) resist ordering other offerings from their menu, all good mind you, but the stand out were the waffles!

Pho Pasteur – Church Street, Parramatta

Pho is always a favorite with me; from the days of university I could be found slurping away bowls of Pho in between lectures.  Pho Pasteur was one of the first Pho joints I’ve visited and I generally try to get in at least one bowl of Pho from there while I am home.

Since there were so many of us we decided to make a Pho run: i.e. get take out.. so we jumped into the car and brought back food for the masses!  Yum.. delicious beef ball noodles!!

Pancakes on the Rocks – Hickson Road, The Rocks

It’s almost 12:00am and you hear a rumble in your tummy; that can only mean one thing.. Supper! If it’s pancakes you’re a craving then Pancakes on the Rocks is where you should be headed too!

This place has been in existence for as long as I’ve been eating and by looking at the picture I am sure you can see why!  Not to mention they are open until the wee early hours of the morning.  Be warned though there is sometimes a wait for about 1/2 and hour to get in (depending on what time of the nite/morning you rock on by).. but trust me it’s well worth the trip!

And so ends my first installment of my 3 weeks in Sydney.. stay tuned for chapters 2 and 3.. I promise you there will be more delicious food for you to take note of!

google Tags: Paddington Markets, Cupcakes, Cheese steak rolls, hamburgers, the cupcake bakery, sydney fish markets, pitt street mall, sydney, sashimi, masuya, japanese, bento, oysters, chili crab, gravlax, pho, pho pasteur, lindt, waffles, pancakes, cockle bay wharf, parramatta, vietnamese

Your Majesties..

Majestic Restaurant

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Address:

31-37 Bukit Pasoh Road
Singapore 089845
Tel: 6223 5593

 

We found ourselves heading to the Majestic Restaurant again.  From the last time we were there When You Wish Upon a Star we decided to eat there again and try their set menu.  There were enough of us (including a funky pastry chef: Chef Sebastien) to warrant us the use of their private dining room *yay*.

Our degustation menu for the evening (SGD88++ per person) comprised of the following:

Fried prawn, coated with salted egg yolk served with mixed fruits salad

Double boiled shark’s fin soup with sea treasures and black truffle*

*we opted to change the sharks fin to sea cucumber.. have to look after those poor sharks you know!

A combination of sliced Peking duck with pan-seared foie gras and fried crab claw with sake and spicy chilli sauce

Braised South African whole abalone with homemade beancurd and garden greens

Grilled rack of lamb in Chinese honey with wok-fried carrot cake

Crispy durian ice-cream

If I had to pick the best and worst dishes for the lot it would have to be the Crispy Durian Ice-cream and the Grilled Rack of Lamb in Chinese Honey with Wok-fried Carrot Cake. 

The texture and the taste of the durian coupled with the crispiness of it’s encasement was just divine.. I seriously could have eaten truckloads more!

As for the Rack of Lamb; sadly the carrot cake was way too salty; not one of us was able to finish their portion, but aside from that the food and the service was top notch!

google Tags: Majestic Restaurant, Degustation, Chinese cuisine, review, restaurant

I Gave my Love a Chicken.. It Had no Bones!

@Sin Ming Cook House / Bakery / Whateva

Chicken Cordon Bleu – Simple Yet Always Tasty

One of the earliest ‘expensive’ dishes that I can ever remember tasting was Chicken Cordon Bleu; breaded chicken breast stuffed with cheese and ham then slowly oven roasted or fried.. yumo!  Well at least back then I thought that things couldn’t get any better than that, how naive!

Anyway, in an attempt to cook this dish myself one nite a month back  I came up with this little recipe, it turned out to be not too bad so I thought I would share it with you.

Chicken Cordon Bleu with Beef Wrapped Asparagus

Ingredients

• 4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 6 slices Swiss cheese
• 4 slices cooked ham
• 1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs
  • Grated Grana Padano Cheese
  • Truffle salt
• Corn Flour
• 2 Eggs

Directions

1. Pound the chicken breast to a 1/4 inch thickness
2. Place cheese and ham on top of each breast
3. Roll up each breast and secure with a toothpick
4. Coat chicken in corn flour
5. Dip in beaten egg and heavily coat the chicken in bread crumbs
6. Shallow fry chicken in oil 10-15 minutes on each side, strain and allow to cool
7. Places strips of cheese on top of each cooked breast and allow to melt

The asparagus can be oven baked by either wrapping them in marinated slices of beef or bacon.

Bon Appétit – Sidney

google Tags: Chicken Cordon Bleu, Cooking, Recipe, Singapore

Give that Man a Guinness

@Dunk Place – Australia

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What do you do when your little nephew is on the brink of turning 1?  Bake him a cake of course!  The wifey and I were in Sydney last week, unfortunately while we were there the Petersen clan were headed off to a wedding in Melbourne.  We were lucky enough to house sit while they were away so we thought that it would be a nice surprise for Luka to find a cake waiting for him when he got back.

I headed out to the local neighborhood Coles and Woolies supermarket to get my supplies; let me digress for a moment to say that I adore grocery shopping in Australia, you’ve got a very wide selection of goods, extra wide non-cluttered aisles.

Solidified Oil and Lard.. mmmmm 

A projected 30 minutes of shopping turned into 1 hour, with bags filled I returned with supplies ready to bake.

Aussie Ingredients – Somehow they’re just better! 

Here’s the recipe for Lukas 1st birthday cake, being an Aussie I couldn’t think of no other cake to make for him other than one that contained alcohol: a Guinness Chocolate cake!

The Cake

Oh come here my pretty..

• 250ml Guinness
• 250g unsalted butter
• 75g cocoa
• 400g caster sugar
• 1 x 142ml pot sour cream
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon real vanilla extract
• 275g plain flour
• 2 1/2teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180°C, and butter and line a 23cm spring form tin.
2. Pour the Guinness into a large wide saucepan, add the butter - in spoons or slices - and heat until the butter's melted, at which time you should whisk in the cocoa and sugar. Beat the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla and then pour into the brown, buttery, beery pan and finally whisk in the flour and bicarb.
3. Pour the cake batter into the greased and lined tin and bake for 45 minutes to an hour. Leave to cool completely in the tin on a cooling rack, as it is quite a damp cake.

The Guinness ‘Head’

• 300g cream cheese
• 150g icing sugar
• 125ml double or whipping cream

Directions:

1. When the cake's cold, sit it on a flat platter or cake stand and get on with the icing. Lightly whip the cream cheese until smooth, sieve over the icing sugar and then beat them both together. Or do this in a processor, putting the unsieved icing sugar in first and blitz to remove lumps before adding the cheese.
2. Add the cream and beat again until it makes a spreadable consistency.
3. Ice the top of the black cake so that it resembles the frothy top of the famous pint

Now who wouldn’t want to come home to this?

And there you have it.. a simple and fuss free recipe for Guinness Chocolate cake.. I’ve made this twice already and it has been made by another friend of mine from work.. all getting a big thumbs up!

google Tags: Guinness, cake, desert, Luka, Sydney, Australia