Cooking Across 4 Generations

Yesterday we went to our non local, local for lunch. Bistro Moncur is the kind of restaurant that you feel is your local even if you have to go 5 or 6 suburbs to get there. We wish we had a restaurant like this with in walking distance, but alas we don’t. Generally we will bus in to the city and then walk out to Woolahra from there.
You may remember from a previous post that R and I went to Moncur Terrace a few weeks ago. That visit Bistro Moncur (downstairs) was quite busy and decibel level was a bit high, so we ate upstairs in the Terrace. Yesterday however it was a bit quieter so we decided to eat in the Bistro(great having a choice of two dining areas). First thing to sort out was what to drink. We decided to splurge a little yesterday and ordered a bottle of Perrier Jouet Blason Rose. Gorgeous colour and very tasty. I decided to have a dish of Ballotine of Barossa chicken spiked with basil pistou, crisp skinned pork belly, house pickled turnips, brocolini, baby potatoes and creamed parsnip. R had Panfried Spanish Turbot with green beans, King Edward potato, pickled cumquat and a broccoli heart puree. We decided to skip a dessert and instead had the cheese selection with Holy Goat Skyla, Rouzaire Camembert, and Strzelcecki blue served with house made quince paste and great tasting lavosh.

R’s Turbot with a bit of mine in the background….

As usual a great meal. We have never been dissapointed with any of our dining experiences at Bistro Moncur or Moncur Terrace. Always great service and food.

Dinner was a quick and easy Tandoori chicken and selection of naan from another of our favourites, Faheem’s Fast Food in Enmore.

We were lucky to find one of our favourite champagnes, Heidseick and Co’s Monopole, back in stock at  Vintage Cellars in Newtown. It went down quite well and hopefully Vintage Cellars can restock it again soon, as we got the last bottle on the shelf.

That wraps up another Sunday of dining out.

Tomorrow I am off to Pony with the MLA for another Grazing Club luncheon, really looking forward to that.

Catch you soon!

Well winter is almost over for another year. This means the opportunity to indulge in heavy foods is coming to an end. So last night we had fondue. Along with Raclette it is one of two Swiss meals that I can do.

As Woolworths was out of the Le Superbe Brand of fondue mix and I didn’t get to place an order for fondue mix, Gruyere or emmentaller cheese with Christian at Fromart, I had to make my own up. As it was only for two people there was no need to make a huge amount. I bought some Swiss style cheese and lo and behold Woolies actually had some Swiss Gruyere, so all was not lost by using the slightly blander Aussie product.

Here is my version.

For two People…

200-230 Gr Gruyere cheese

200-230Gr Emmentaler(or Swiss style cheese)

1 garlic clove

Kirsch

300ml Riesling

pinch Paprika

pinch white pepper

Pinch nutmeg or mace

Cut the garlic clove in half and rub all over the inside of the pan. Cut one or 2 slices of the garlic and place in the saucpan with the wine. Place on stove and bring to a simmer. Add the cheese and turn heat to medium. Cheese will need to be stirred until completely melted. Once the cheese and wine have combined add Kirsch to taste( I like about a tablespoon for the quantity of cheese given), season with the spices and check the flavour. If the fondue looks grainy or runny I mix a little bit of cornflour with water and stir it in until the mixture looks smooth and “creamy” just remember to cook the cornflour out for a minute or two.

Put fondue pot on to the stand above the burner and dip cubes of baguette in to it.

Most of the time I use plain white baguette or I get a 1/2 sour dough baguette and a 1/2 plain baguette. As Rene likes his bread cubes a bit bigger I cut each baguette in half down the length  and then each half gets cut again down the length. This gives 4 long pieces of baguette. I then cut each piece across the length (about 1.5cm – 2cm).  We also drink the rest of the reisling as we find reisling goes best with the richness of cheese.

Hope you enjoy my version of fondue!

Well all quiet in this direction. However in the past four weeks we have  eaten out five times.

We went to Wildfire for lunch one Sunday and went for dinner at Tabou on another Sunday.
Wildfire. Always good for the churrasco. This was the first time we had been to Wildfire for Sunday lunch. We had churrasco again which was great as usual. A  bottle of Chandon Rose, nice drop and then we spotted Dom Perignon(our favourite) sold by the glass!! So no dessert for us  just 2 glasses of Dom. Apparently they have some capsule that will keep Champagne fresh for up to 3 weeks. An open bottle of champers would never last that long in our house.

The Chandon Rose..

 Can you tell I love Dom Perignon?

Then a week later we went for dinner at Tabou in Surry Hills. Slightly disappointed this time round. Food was good service was a bit lack lustre. We always BYO to Tabou and it seemed that people who ordered wine were topped up quicker than we were. Maybe they didn’t like our bottle of Moet. Hopefully service will pick up again and the food return to it’s previopus best. But we did enjoy what we ordered.

This past weekend we went to ECQ bar for drinks and then on to Sailors Thai in The Rocks on the weekend. My first visit there but R has been there several times for business lunches. Really enjoyed it. But I love Thai food. Great service and great food. Our wine order was put through wrong and we ended up with a bottle of Paul Bara Champagne instead of a Loire sparkling.  The three dishes we had were: spicy southern curry of suzuki mulloway; twice marinated red curry of grilled spatchcock with pickled ginger; braised tasmanian grass fed beef ribs dressed with lime, green chilli and shallots(hungry just thinking about them). Will definitely be going back.

Then Sunday we headed up to Katoomba for an over night stay at Lilianfels. As we had a late check in we had lunch at Echoes Boutique Hotel and Restaurant which is next door to Lilianfels. We both had a very nice Confit Duck Risotto with mushrooms, a fabulous 1/2 bottle of Henschke 2006 Euphonium, followed by a selection of Australian cheese(we ordered a one person size and there was enough for two, so great value). Then we checked in to Lilianfels at 3. Wandered around, played pool and relaxed until dinner. Dinner was noisy with screaming children and unfortunately the menu seems to have been dumbed down from it’s usual high standard. Read very much like an RSL bistro menu. But it tasted good , but plain fare. Unfortunately the fine dining is closed on Sundays so we missed out on dining there. We did notice that Swiss Cottage is now open on Sundays so we will probably dine there in future, or go in to Echoes. Breakfast was also a bit disappointing with a 10 minute wait for a seat and then no scrambled eggs until we had been there 20 minutes, and no strawberry jam for my croissant. Cappucinos and Lattes are now extra. Such a change(and not a good one) from when we first went there 5 years ago. Back then there was the buffet and you got to choose one a la carte item cooked freshly for you.  I remember last year when we went that there was such a line up to get in for breakfast that we ended up just checking out and having McDonalds.

One good thing was we saw a few snow flakes falling, and at 1130 when we were leaving it was only 3 degrees celcius.

So this weekend will be a stay at home one. Hopefully no rain so I can light the BBQ for a change.

Catch you soon!

V