De Cero

Chicago Nighttime
Originally uploaded by Suzi Edwards

One of the best things about Chicago is the easy access to a great Margarita and exceptional Mexican food. I can be as relentless as an anteater in my pursuit of a well made cocktail.

I had been in Chicago for less than three hours before I headed to Chipotle for some of their carnitas. Chipotle used to be a guilty pleasure for me, what with formerly being majority-owned by MacDonalds, but they’ve been free of the golden arches since 2006, so you can visit without putting your morals on hold. It’s worth a visit (although probably not worth almost missing an international flight like I did after one visit).

I’m not here to tell you about chain restaurants though. Monday saw me head off to De Cero, a “modern-day tacqueria”. Modern-day signifies that the tuna is ahi, the raspberry daiquiri has basil in it and they’ve gone for a “stripped-down” design ethos. If I worked for Wallpaper*, I’d call it “”a raw-urban aesthetic…with a hint of rustic”, but I don’t, so I’ll call it brown and acoustically-challenged with a hint of I’m sorry I can’t hear you. The only things capable of absorbing the noise in this place are the tamales. It’s busier than a one-legged Riverdancer, but they accommodated me. Chicagoans are nice like that.

I’d been guided towards the duck taco, so that was ordered, along with the ahi tuna, some ceviche and a goat cheese tamale. Oh, and a Margarita, because it was Monday and I am instigating Margarita Mondays from now on.

Chef Jill Barron (who has some interesting tattoos), describes the food as “fresh coastal Mexican” and I would concur, but suggest she tones down the lime in the ceviche as the fresh flavours of the baby scallops and rock shrimp disappear. It’s about as unbalanced as Amy Winehouse’s Glastonbury performance this year. Luckily the tacos are much better, especially the duck. It’s partnered with roasted corn, and the juiceness and sweetness of two make a nice two-part harmony.

Then my tamale arrived. I realise that I am about to have a restaurant malfunction. I don’t actually know how to eat a tamale, I had been seduced by the thought of hot chilli masa. I start scanning the room for clues, but my vision is disintegrating from the noise. I can’t see, it’s so loud. I’m beginning to panic. I’m an autodidact when it comes to restaurants and am happy to make mistakes. That said, most people don’t spend as long as me researching exactly what to do when you’re seated at the sushi bar (use your fingers for nigiri, chopsticks for sashimi, don’t ask the sushi chef for soup, don’t mix your wasabi and soy together and don’t dip the rice in the soy, just in case you were wondering. Any of those will have you pegged as a savage, quicker than you can say irasshaimase). I never expected to be defeated by a tamale though.

The essential problem is that I don’t know if the wrapper is edible. I have encountered a problem like this before, when I nearly choked to death on some edamame in Yo! Sushi! I didn’t know you were supposed to pop the beans out, so scarfed the lot. I soon realized you’d need the teeth of a ruminant to get through one and attempted to swallow it, rather than spitting it out discretely. This caused someone to have to perform the Heimlich maneuver on me. A tentative nibble on the tamale husk proves that it is, indeed, inedible, and akin to eating macramé. Crisis averted, I can dig in. It’s OK.

Of course I had to order another Margarita to get over the panic. Luckily that was delicious.

De Cero is at 814 W.Randolph. Call them on 312 455 8114 but don’t expect them to be able to hear you.

www.decerotaqueria.

The photo is of Chicago. I thought the photos of the tacos were a bit uninspiring.

Wahaca

Wahaca, Pork Scratchings
Originally uploaded by Suzi Edwards

Oh Thomasina Miers. You’re so clever. First you win Masterchef and then you make a book about soup. Everyone likes soup. Then you decide to start a restaurant. You begin with modern British, but come to realize that this is what every other pub is doing at the moment and the market is too tight. I can see you now, scouring the internet food forums to see what everyone thinks that London is missing.

And of course it’s authentic Mexican food.

You open in a big space in Covent Garden. You don’t take bookings, because this is casual street food. You make the portions right for sharing, because that’s what we’re all doing these days. You make sure your fish is sustainable and the pork and chicken free range, because we at the top of the food chain need to be nice to the things we eat.

And then you ruin it all by Anglicising the spelling. We’re not idiots. We can work out how to pronounce Oaxaca. You call it Wahaca. I gnash my teeth.

But it’s really not bad. The fish pastor taco is a bit too sweet and too oily but the salmon ceviche tostados are a real winner with great balance between hot chile, sweet salmon and sharp lime. The guacamole needs more salt and more spice, but the Mexican pork scratchings turn out to be one of the best things to dip into anything since food began. Crispy pork skin dipped in avocado or some refried black beans. What do you mean, you can hear my arteries hardening? Pass the salsa.

A quesadilla with broad beans, mint and feta wasn’t half as light and summery as I had hoped, but it was still a delicious cheesy treat. Another with chorizo and potato disappeared quicker than you can say mole. They make a mean margarita, but serve them in champage flutes, which means soon we all have salt rimmed noses. But it’s all fun, in a continental kind of way. World domination is next, with plans to open in a new shopping mall in Hammersmith. I hope they can keep it up, this is a worthy, if a bit posh-mex, addition to the London Mexican food scene.

Wahaca is at 6 Chandos Place, Covent Garden.

St John and the rise of the London Gastropub

Sweetbreads
Originally uploaded by Suzi Edwards

One of the things that I love has been the evolution of the gastropub in London. It has democratized dining by creating a reliable middle tier of restaurant. It wasn’t that long ago that your choices would be either high-end fine dining, or scampi in a basket from the brewery-owned pub down the road. Not that there’s anything wrong with scampi, but there was something wrong with pub kitchens making sole use of the microwave or the deep-fat fryer.

Of course it’s not all good, and for a while there wasn’t a boozer that hadn’t stripped its floors, painted the walls white and put a terrine on the menu, but generally speaking, the gastropub has raised the standard of casual dining across the country. You no longer need to go all white linen and fish forks to get a good meal.

So I make a concerted effort to get to some of the gastropubs in London when I am here. Partly because when you earn Australian dollars and the credit crunch is in full-flight, you can’t afford to eat high-end every night, but also because I like this casual dining thing.

Strangely enough, any look at gastropubs begins, not with a pub, but with a restaurant. It’s called St John and when chef Fergus Henderson opened the doors in 1994, he caused a bit of a stir. St John is now always in the world’s top 100 restaurants list, which is amazing when you consider that many people wrinkle their noses when you tell them what you ate there. I still don’t think Frog has forgiven me for eating that squirrel. What St John did was to reinvent the London restaurant. The menu reads like paired down Hemmingway, with no place for adjectival fripperies such as “pan-fried” or “on a bed of”. You get what you order, so “langoustines and mayonnaise” or “lamb’s sweetbreads”, (pictured) will be just that. Luckily this is sourcing and cooking of the highest order and the langoustines are so fresh and sweet that you don’t really need the raspy mayo, so I just smear that, quarter inch thick, on their exceptional bread. The sweetbreads are seared and served with a hint of wobble and their frying juices. “Salad” offered some contrast. It takes big balls to serve a plate of butter lettuce with spring onions, but when it’s dressed with the best salad dressing you’ll have all year, everything is elevated.

Most gastropubs follow the St John menu taxonomy, with starters blurring into main courses, some dishes meant for sharing and those sparse descriptions. The great thing about St John is that it has been around for long enough to have spawned some imitators and for its chefs to have moved on to do their own thing. The former head chef at St John Bread and Wine, Tom Pemberton, has recently opened Hereford Road and, based on my lunchtime experience there, is going to do very well. It’s St John but in a less austere room, with a wonderful skylight and burgundy walls. We shared most of the starters, including some great crab on toast that was more tasty brown meat than white (a Good Thing, in my book) and some great sand eels. The chips were superlative, all scronchy and golden and perfect to mop up the blood and juices from an onglet. This is simple, seasonal food with nowhere for mistakes to hide, although I was a little underwhelmed by the globe artichoke.

Medcalf in Exmouth Market was one of the first St John-a-likes and is always a reliable place, especially if Moro is unable to accommodate. The battered old metal tables always annoy though, especially when they flake rust onto your hands. Head Chef Mark Spence has moved on from here and opened Market in Camden, a place that has been crying out for this sort of thing for as long as I can remember. The service is charming, the chairs all old wooden school chairs and the slip soles were as good as any I have eaten. Portions are massive though, so be warned.

The Anchor and Hope, with its no bookings, wait in the packed bar like calves waiting to be crated across Europe-vibe was on the Binky boycott list for a long time, but I relented at Christmas and had a wonderful game pie. I completely understand why restaurants go down the no-bookings route, but it still irks me. Luckily the food is wonderful and the hectic atmosphere makes this a buzzy, fun place to eat. They opened Great Queen Street at the tail end of last year, and it’s basically Anchor and Hope, but with bookings. Last night’s hastily grabbed meal shows a restaurant that almost knows what it’s doing, but lets itself down with distracted service. I’m not sure you can ever serve potato soup with cockles and laver bread to a Welshman and expect him to not complain at paying more than 50p and my terrine needed more larding, but this is a reliable place in the West End. I’m not sure I’ll be rushing back but it’s a massive improvement on the Thai place that used to be there.

Hereford Road is at 3 Hereford Road, W2. 020 7727 1144. http://www.herefordroad.org

Great Queen Street is at 32 Great Queen Street, WC2B 5AA. 020 7242 0622.

Medcalf is at 40 Exmouth Market. 020 7833 3533. http://www.medcalfbar.co.uk

The Anchor and Hope is at 36 The Cut. They don’t take bookings, so there’s no point calling. Get there at about 5.30pm for the 6.00pm tables.

Market is at 43 Parkway, Camden. 020 7267 9700

St John has two branches and a very helpful website http://www.stjohnrestaurant.co.uk/

Introducing the NomNomNoms

NomNomNomsGroup Pic
Originally uploaded by Suzi Edwards

So it all really started when we discovered that I know two people called Giles. Actually, I know five people called Giles, but it turns out that the bloke from Buffy the Vampire Slayer doesn't count.

It was clear that we needed to get these Giles' (or should it be Giles's?) together, to see if the world would implode and what are the correct rules for possession and pluralisation of names ending with an 's'. Oh yes, and to eat some good food. People called Giles like to eat.

So Damana came up with the name, because we're all greedy weasels and are likely to make ravenous noises when eating. There was *a lot* of discussion about where we would eat first. Emails like this flew about:

"Right, I love the B theme too. So the nominees for the first dinner are:


Bilsons
Billy Kwong
Bistrode
Balzac
Becasse
Boathouse on Blackwattle Bay

Three votes each. You can put all three onto one restaurant or spread them out. Idea is to get the broadest possible idea of where people want to go.

Rah."

Votes were purchased, gauntlets thrown down, handbags parried at dawn. Bilsons won. The fact that I wait until last to vote and was collating the results, means that one day I'll probably end up being dictator of a small African nation.

And then it all gets rather interesting. Bilsons had a dish on the à la carte menu that I had wanted to try for years. Lièvre à la Royale, or Hare with black truffles, foie gras and a sauce made of the hare's blood.

Calls were placed. Hares were caught. Bilsons ended up substituting the dish onto the Menu Fin Bec. We were hoping they'd actually create a whole new tasting menu for us, but they didn't seem to want to go that far. Either way, we were having a special menu created for us at a very special restaurant.

We've created a group blog about the NomNomNoms. The idea is that we'll all contribute. I still need to organise my thoughts about the meal but you might like to check it out.

Oh, and if you'd be interested in joining us, please let me know by either leaving a comment with your contact details or emailing me. Am sure we'll enjoy dreaming up a devilish hazing for new members

Bentley Restaurant

Duck.
Originally uploaded by Suzi Edwards

I had a not bad three course meal at Bentley Bar and Restaurant in Surry Hills recently. Unfortunately it was part of an eight course tasting menu, so I left feeling financially mugged and gastronomically frustrated.

Do I not like fine dining anymore? I’m really starting to wonder if my travels to eat in all of the temples of avant-garde cuisine were the mere folly of youth. Did I let my brain get in the way of my taste buds? Did I really enjoy all that molecularly modified food? Am I having some sort of gastronomic mid-life crisis?

I can’t actually remember the last time I left a fine-dining restaurant ecstatically happy. Tetsuyas? White truffle ice cream tastes of bad breath.. Hibiscus? Nice sausage roll.There are more, but I can’t actually remember any of the meals without going to Flickr and that’s part of the problem.

What I can remember are the roast chicken with bread sauce at Glebe Point Diner in Sydney. The locally caught mussels wrapped in home reared and cured lardo at the Sportsman in Seasalter. Neither of these are fine-dining (although the Sportsman does have a Michelin star) but both of these punch far above their weight in terms of their deliciousness, despite their lack of pomp and circumstance.

So why did I dislike Bentley so much and why I am writing about it, given I said that this blog was here to celebrate the good? Because sometimes you have to call people out when they are serving bad food. So here’s the new rule from the fabulous life of Binky Silhouette. I’m not just telling you about the good stuff anymore.

But I can’t resist some positivity. There was some good to be found here. The amuses bouches were unusual and delicious. I know I’m a patè whore, but serving jerusalem artichoke soup with a schmear of chicken liver patè at the bottom was a good idea, and one I will be stealing at home. The roasted duck breast with kohl rabi and black fungus was earthy and rich and showcased a nice piece of duck. The white chocolate and mandarin fizz with mandarin ice cream was a beautifully balanced desert, albeit with elements I first saw at WD-50 about five years ago. You can’t fault someone from re-using a good idea.

However, serving pork with salmon roe is not a very good idea. There’s a reason why pork and fish are generally kept apart. You can’t take a pork cheek, an unctuous, fatty piece of meat at the best of times and contrast it with the…unctuous, fatty, fishy richness of some salmon roe. You then can’t serve it with some smoked salmon and beetroot. Especially when the smoked salmon is inside an ersatz ravoli that appears to made out of purple-tinged polystyrene.

I’m going to stop here. I’ll let the Flickr set tell you the rest.

Bentley Bar and Restaurant is at 320 Crown Street. You don’t need the number. You won’t be going.

Glebe Point Diner is at 407 Glebe Point Road. You can make a reservation for one of their two dinner sittings on (02) 9660 2646.

I'll tell you more about the Sportsman very soon.

North Bondi Italian Food

NBIF menu
Originally uploaded by Suzi Edwards

I think I’ve found a reason to want the Sydney winter to continue.

The Global Corporate Challenge has awakened my latent competitiveness and I now find myself walking everywhere. The planned walk from Spit Bridge to Manly had been cancelled (due partly to inclement weather and partly to 74 sub-standard Margaritas at La Cita the night before) but I had a terrible urge to “get the steps in”.

This is the only reason I have for why last Sunday, I was one of only three people walking along Bondi Beach in the sleeting rain and a force 12 gale. I’m fairly sure that the other two were also British.

If any Australians had spotted me, I’m sure they would have rolled their eyes twice. Once for the fact that they don’t think Bondi is “all that” and find my obsession with this beach risible. And twice because it was bloody cold.

But I was walking with purpose and I figured I would treat myself to lunch at North Bondi Italian Food, little sister restaurant to Icebergs.

It’s a casual (but not inexpensive), chic place, which doesn’t take reservations. It was already rammed at 12.30pm and the wait time for a table was an hour. Luckily, you can also eat at the bar, and given I looked like the wild wombat woman of Wooloomooloo (I love saying that. More “oohs” than a lorry load of adult DVDs), I can imagine that the Maitre’d was quite happy for me to be hidden by the door, away from the far more glamorous Sydney residents who’d already bagged a table. I love restaurants with a bar that solo diners can eat at. You feel much less inconspicuous (not something I generally worry about, but last night’s mascara was halfway down my cheeks and I was wearing a Yahoo t-shirt), you don’t feel the need to tip double (which I generally do in a nice place when I’ve taken up a two-top) and you can flirt with the hot barman (which, given I discovered the mascara when I got home was perhaps over-ambitious). The menu is utterly eatable and it took me a whole, very delicious, latte and about 26 complimentary monkey nuts to make my decision. It was meant to be a light lunch, so some salami and bread to begin and soup to follow.

Doesn’t sound like it’s going to amount to much, does it?

But this is a restaurant that takes its sourcing very seriously. So the salami is a cacciatore salami made from 90kg Black Berkshire pigs that have clearly had a very happy life. It’s served with some exceptional breads from Sonoma bakery and Fratelli Fresh olive oil. My only complaint was that you can’t get a tasting plate of the salumi and I really want to try to cutaletto and the guanciale. Next up was a massive, steaming bowl of twice cooked chicken broth with chicken polpette and chunky carrots. The bowl’s big enough to drown in and is everything that chicken soup could ever be. The stock was beautifully clarified, full flavoured and sparkling. The meatballs were firm and tasty, the chunky carrots all sweet and…well, chunky. It’s so easy to do chicken soup wrong, but all of the components were carefully thought-out and a lot of extra effort had gone into making this a wonderful dish.

I would have stayed for an averna (this place has a great digestive list) but it was getting hugely busy and I was being bumped and clattered from all sides. The noise level was unbearable. I’ll never understand the fashion for restaurants made entirely of hard surfaces that don’t even think to put some linen on the tables. I can imagine that this isn’t a problem in the summer, when the huge French-windows open and you can both see and hear the waves, but for now, my only criticism can only be righted by beautiful velvet drapes around all of the walls.

I cannot wait to go back here. It’s my new favourite place. Next time I want to get stuck into the (be still my beating heart) offal section of the menu, or perhaps try a roast of the day. And the marinated sardines. And some pasta. Oh God. I really can’t wait to go back.

North Bondi Italian Food is at 1 Notts Avenue, just opposite Bondi Beach.

Fresh borlotti beans with prawns

Prawns
Originally uploaded by Suzi Edwards

I’ve become slightly obsessed with Giorgio Locatelli’s book “Made In Italy, Food & Stories” recently. Not just because I almost had to pay an excess luggage charge to bring it back to Australia (it’s slightly heavier than a small breeze block), but it’s a great overview of Italian regional cookery and the life of a chef.

So it was a rainy Monday public holiday in Sydney, and decided to cook from it.

I’d picked up some beautiful fresh borlotti beans from (yes, you’ve guessed it) the Norton Street Grocer and some prawns from David Jones Food Hall. The beans didn’t let me down and podding them was a joy, revealing the speckled beans that look like little pink lizard’s eggs. The prawns were a bit meagre, but luckily I had bought plenty, so we didn’t go hungry.

This could be classed as cooking for inept single men. You don’t have to make the shellfish stock or cook beans from fresh, but sometimes it’s nice to go to a little extra effort, isn’t it?

Ingredients (for two as a starter, one greedy weasel as a main course)
About 400g of fresh borlotti beans, podded
½ head of unpeeled garlic, plus two extra cloves, minced
1 stalk of celery
Some herbs, I used parsley and sage
Nice olive oil
As many prawns as you fancy. I used medium sized green prawns
1 long chilli pepper (not too fiery, don’t use a birds eye one)
Some nice white wine (I used a pinot grigio from Harndorf Hill winery in Adelaide)
A couple of tablespoons of passata

To serve
Some chopped parsley
Some minced garlic
Your best olive oil

Start by cooking your beans. You want to boil them in plenty of unsalted water with the garlic, herbs and celery. It’s important to not salt the beans as salting them now will make them really tough. Which is appealing in an action hero, but less so in a bean. Cover them in cold water, bring to the boil and skim off any scum. Reduce the heat and simmer, with the lid on, until they’re soft to the bite (probably about 45 minutes to one hour). Once cooked, keep them warmish (I just left the lid on the pan).

At this point, heat your oven to about 180 degrees.

Peel your prawns, leaving the heads on and remove the digestive tract. This can be a bit fiddly if you’ve never done it before. I recommend first running your thumb down the underside of the prawn, which loosens the shell, and then peeling from there. Save the shells for the stock. Once peeled, lay your prawn down and slice the tail in two (known as butterflying). As you slice through you’ll be able to remove the digestive tract which runs along the top of the prawn. If you’re unfamiliar with the anatomy of a prawn, it looks like a thinnish black line encased in a membrane. To be honest though, you’ll be able to tell. Prawn crap is quite distinctive.

To make your stock, heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a pan and sauté the shells with a splash of white wine, about half a chilli, a couple of smashed garlic cloves and a tablespoon of passata. Add enough water to cover, but don’t go mad as we’re trying to concentrate the flavours. Cook for no more than 10 minutes and then strain through a sieve, making sure you scronch down the shells and push all the flavour through. Don’t forget to scrape the underside of the sieve, the stock will be thick and concentrated here. Just stir it in.

You’ll need your biggest pan. If all of the prawns won’t fit, cook in two batches. We want to fry the prawns and get them caramelizing, not steam them. Heat your oil, add the garlic and chilli and cook for a few moments to flavour the oil. Do not allow the garlic to burn. This is the critical part of the recipe. Burnt garlic tastes of ass. Season the prawns and drop them into the pans on their backs. Resist the urge to shake or stir, let them caramelize. Once this had happened, press down on the heads to release the brains. I’ll let you into a secret. Prawn heads are the best bit of a prawn. Next time you have them, suck the heads. Pure concentrated essence of prawn. Don’t want the heads, I’ll have yours. Once cooked, keep your prawns warm in the oven. You did turn it on, didn’t you?

Use a slotted spoon to add the beans to the pan that you cooked the prawns in, season and bring to the boil. You’re going to sauce the beans, either with some of the cooking water or the stock (depending on how much effort you wanted to go to). If you’re using the water, add the passata and some wine, but don’t let the sauce get too thin. Crush some of the beans to mingle the flavours from the prawns and to thicken the sauce.

I plated this by placing the beans in the centre of the plate and then artfully arranged the prawns ontop, drizzled with some best olive oil and some chopped parsley, a couple of rings of chilli and some garlic.

A full photoset is available on Flickr