London Lunching @ Muriel's Kitchen

During my recent eurotip I ate a lot of good food in some amazing places...

On my first day in London, upon discovering that I was staying nearby to where an old friend has been living, he decided to give me a tour of his neighbourhood, South Kensington.

It's a pretty upmarket area (on the Piccadilly line) with a lot of museums, Royal Albert Hall, cute shops and cafes, as well as Hyde Park just to the north. On this rather grey summer afternoon, my friend took me to one of his favourite local lunch destinations, Muriel's Kitchen. Muriel's Kitchen is a gorgeous cafe (with an amazing cake display) based on the concept of one of the proprietor's grandmother's kitchen. It's beautifully homey and the food all looks like something my own gran would have cooked (if she had such styled crockery).

We started with coffees. Not being a local I ordered a cappuccino without realising that Melburnians should not order milk coffee in London unless they like weak cappuccinos (or are hanging out at Flat White or St. Ali London) Regardless, it was better than the coffee I'd had in Paris.

We ordered some of the colourful salads (both £4.25) to accompany our shared main. The first of these was a delicious combination of still crisp sugar snap peas and beans with orange, hazelnut, red onion and herbs (parsley and dill).

The next salad was a more Asian style combination of broccoli, chilli, garlic, soy and sesame seeds.

We also shared a hearty main of Italian style meatballs in a basil and tomato sugo (£8.99)

While we were both far from hungry, the lure of the cake display led to the order of a decadent pear and pecan cake with coffee cream cheese frosting.

CBD Lunches: Kenzan @ GPO

One of my favourite places for a quick bite of quality lunchtime sushi is the Kenzan outpost in the GPO building. I work near the posh main Kenzan restaurant, but don’t generally have the time or the cash to pop in for a quick $35 bento. Instead I prefer heading to Kenzan @ GPO, which is not the cheapest Japanese lunch option in the city, but the quality ingredients are worth it. 

It specialises in high-quality sushi rolls with interesting ingredients. All of the nori rolls are roll your own, which ensures that the nori is pleasantly crisp and much tastier than pre-rolled nori. The sushi rolls range from $3.50-$5. 

Soft shell crab inside out roll

Prawn and avocado inside out roll

Spicy tuna nori roll: pre-rolled state

Spicy tuna nori roll

Their sashimi (around $15 for a small serve) is also super fresh and perfectly prepared.  The noodle options are also a good choice for something more substantial. 

Sashimi

Pork ramen noodles

Vegetable udon noodles

Doña Tona @ Penny Blue

After a rough Monday in the office I went along with PHo and AC to try out the Doña Tona pop-up at Penny Blue.

Doña Tona has been popping up at Penny blue for the last three weeks serving a rotating range of tacos, tamales and sopes to hungry Melburnians. What sets Doña Tona apart from the many new Mexican places around the CBD is its quality home style cooking courtesy of the front-of-house manager's mother, Rosa.

tongue tacos

What we ate: a warming pork and chicken sopa with pork crackling, beef sopes, vegetarian sopes, beef tongue tacos and poached chuck steak tacos. The highlights were the sublime beef tongue tacos and the vegetarian sopes (suprisingly better than the beef).

sopes

Pork sopa and crackling

What we drank: sierra Nevada pale ale - one of my favourite American beers. Hopefully someone can start importing Fat Tire.

crackling and pale ale

MFWF Express Lunches: Taxi and Grossi

During MFAWF I roped a few of my colleagues into express lunches ($35) at Taxi Dinging Room and Grossi Florentino. The MFAWF express lunches are a great way to try out some of Melbourne's best restaurants without breaking the bank.

Grossi Florentino: the grill

Grossi Florentino is one of Melbourne’s best known Italian restaurants, run by Guy Grossi. It has three sections in a grand building at the top end of Bourke Street – the Cellar Bar, the Grill and the upstairs Restaurant, which is a grander affair. 

Upon calling to make my booking at Grossi I was assured that the grill was serving the same express menu to the booked out upstairs (I’m a bit sceptical about this). Nonetheless, the Grill was definitely a gathering place for movers and shakers that Friday lunch with gossip girl type sightings of a former test cricketer and a rather unpopular former immigration minister tucking into Italian fare.

We started out meal with good crusty bread with top notch olive oil and some herb blends for dipping. 

My colleague JP began his meal with a delightful salad of fig, prosciutto, rocket and pecorino. 

The other two of us started with a deliciously rustic trofie pasta with spiced Sicilian sausage. 

JP (maintaining his individuality) ordered the chicken with spiced pearl cous cous (served with a wedge of lemon), which was excellent despite its dull description. 

I chose the calves liver with onion and mashed potatoes, which was a perfect comforting winter dish.

We decided to get a dessert to share. The crème caramel was hugely underwhelming with substandard taste, texture and presentation that “makes me feel like I’m being punished” – JP.

 

Taxi Dining Room

Our express lunch at Taxi was my favourite of the two. Taxi Dining Room is set in a beautifully light and airy room with glamorous city views.

Our meal began with warm bread rolls.

My starter of sticky pork with roasted sea scallop, hot chilli dressing and apple slaw was excellent.

My main of crispy Szechuan duck with pumpkin, daikon salad and blood orange was perfectly cooked and well balanced. 

The other main of roasted barramundi fillet with soft shell crab with sriracha mayonnaise was reportedly also delicious. 

We finished with a good hit of caffeine to negate the effects of the wine.

Decadent dinner @ Daniel NYC

During my visit to NYC last August I wanted to have one truly memorable, fabulous and decadent evening with my travel crazy cousin Josh from Kansas City (who was filming material for a pilot for the Travel Channel) and his housemate B who was visiting on business. My strategy for this was to pick one of the best restaurants in the city and make sure I had a booking. As Per Se was closed for the summer my choice was Daniel, one of the few restaurants to combine three Michelin stars with four NYT stars. I was close to being swayed by twitter advice from Matt Preston about the awesomeness of Corton but decided that the long running success and the more sedately luxurious dining setting would be better.

Daniel has the choice between a la carte, three course prix fixe ($108 + tax & tip) or tasting menu (six course $195 + $105 wine pairings and eight course $220 + $130 wine pairings). We chose the three course option after I made it clear to my dates that we would be sharing each course because I was blogging (quite possibly the motivating factor in me having a food blog). We chose Domaine Joseph Drouhin Vaudon Chablis (2009, $60) from the heavy tome that was the wine list after consultation with the Sommelier. 

Our meal began with an amuse bouche of golden beet salad, borscht and smoked salmon to whet our appetites.

For the first course I chose the trio of arctic char, which showcased the versatility of the main ingredient brilliantly. The confit with tarragon and lemon balm (right) was delicious as was the pickled with yellow tomato vinaigrette and turmeric (left); however, the standout was the tartar with wasabi and Northern Lights caviar – a wonderful contrast of textures and flavours. 

Josh’s chilled melon veloute with Maine lobster, compressed watermelon, lomo Iberico and espelette pepper cream was also amazing with its subtly spiced melon veloute contrasting nicely with the delicate lobster and more punchy combination of watermelon and ham. 

B’s choice of peekytoe crab in an heirloom tomato gelée with Thai basil, avocado, mango, lilliput capers and olive bread tuile was a deliciously summery combination. 

I chose the duo of beef for my main, which comprised of delectably sticky Black Angus short ribs with cauliflower mousseline and lusciously tender seared wagyu tenderloin with chantarelles, crispy potato and poached bone marrow. 

Josh had the tasting of veal with rare roasted tenderloin with eggplant puree, amazing braised cheeks with glazed zucchini and crispy sweetbreads with caper caponata (which was hastily remade when B knocked water onto Josh’s plate). The sweetbreads were ‘unfortunately’ a bit daunting for Josh, so I helped him out by finishing them. 

B’s chose the Yellowfin tuna ‘a la plancha’ (Spanish for grilled) with sweet pepper ragout, marinated anchovies, chickpea panisse, mustard salad and iberico ham.

For dessert I was swayed by the warm guanaja chocolate coolant with liquid caramel, fleur de sel and milk sorbet. The coulant was decadent with its oozing salted caramel paired with a not too sweet milk sorbet… and yes that is gold leaf on the cake. 

Josh chose the lemongrass poached pineapple with coconut meringue, lime-rum gelée and piña colada sorbet.

B went with the caramelized hazelnut crumble with dulce de leche cream, caraïbe chocolate mousse and horchata ice cream.

Our server decided to bring us out the lavender-honey roasted apricots with almond milk cream, crunchy praline and apricot saffron sorbet, compliments of the house. 

By this stage we were feeling pretty full but were tempted into further indulgence by:

freshly baked madeleines still warm from the oven,

petit fours,

and finally chocolates.