Queens Cafe.

My addiction got up again! I need to get out of the house! haha! I cannot cannot cannot stand staying in the house for too long with nothing to do. That was how I spent my Friday. So Stella and I decided to go to the city~ :D where I bought my blowtorch 6 piece set and JamieOliver flavour shaker. haha. $75 gone. How fast. Then we took a break at Queens Cafe on level 1 of QVB. Boom. $11 gone. I really should have stayed at home. :)

Apple pie and shortcake sandwiched with buttercream. Not great. Apple pie is cold and not flavourful. Shortcake is good though. Very short. Too bad the buttercream is lacking in fineness.

Chocolate charlotte and caramel kiss. Charlotte was average good but caramel kiss was just too urgh! too much caramel. It kills with sweetness.

Moccha. Too sweet for me.

End.

My Piano.

I've realised I haven't shown you guys my rented piano. Here it is! The shop owner told me it originally belonged to an old Caucasian lady before it was sold to them. About 30 years old, this piano. Paling Minor, made in England. :D

End.

My spaghetti bolognese.

I have decided to share this recipe with you guys because I think it is a waste not to. It tastes great and quite dummy-proof to make as compared to the traditional ragu sauce where you spent half the day chopping veggies. I didn't follow any book recipe for this spaghetti. I just made it up myself. You know, sometimes, you read so many recipes that you don't know which is which anymore. And in the end, you have your own recipe. This is my version of spaghetti bolognese with avocado pesto and feta. :D

Avocado pesto

1/2 avocado
a handful of pinenuts
salt
Bolognese sauce
About 200g of mince beef
6 small super ripe tomatoes
2 small carrots or equivalent
1 small onion
2 small cloves of garlic
2 teaspoons of tomato paste
handful of herbs- basil, thyme, rosemary, whatever goes
1 teaspoon cornflour (if need)
Olive oil

Spaghetti- 2 portions, cooked according to instructions on the packet. Coat with a little bit of olive oil.

Feta cheese- to crumble over

Method (makes 2)

1. Make avocado pesto first. (I prefer to make it first, before the bolognese sauce. You can make it later if you like.) Mash avocado with a fork or a masher to mush. Toss the pinenuts on a hot pan for a bit of colour then crush them into little little bits. (I use the JamieOliver flavour shaker to do it. :D) Mix mashed avocado and crushed pinenuts together and season with salt to taste.

2. For the bolognese sauce, first blanch the tomatoes to remove the skin. Blanching means submerging in boiling water for about 1-2 minutes then remove from heat and drain. Makes it easy to remove the skin. Chop the tomatoes into small bits, discard seeds.

3. Cut carrots lengthwise in half, then cut it lengthwise in half again. From there, chop into little quarter bits. Scald in boiling water then drain immediately.

4. Chop onions and garlic finely.

5. Splash olive oil in a pan. Saute onions and garlic on medium-high heat.

6. When onions become transparent and starts to colour, add mince beef to the pan. Saute till mince beef has browned and cooked.

7. Add chopped tomatoes and carrots. Let the tomatoes boil in their own juice until they
become pulp and mushy.

8. Add tomato paste. Stir it into the sauce. At this point if your sauce is still too runny/watery, add cornflour. It depends on how you like your sauce. I don't want mine to be too runny. I prefer mine to have abit of weight to be able to cling onto my spaghetti when I eat it.

9. Add the herbs. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

10. Add the spaghetti to the sauce, mix it through. Then plate it into 2 portions.

11. Top the spaghetti bolognese with avocado pesto, dribble some olive oil on it. Then crumble feta cheese over. Eat it straight!

Viola! Enjoy!

End.

Makoto

12.06.2008 Thursday.

I am spending money like crazy. haha. Lots of eat-outs though I still have a whole larder of food at home. It has become an addiction now. A very wallet-hurting addiction. :C Anyway, this is my next food hunt destination: Makoto. It is supposedly the best sushi bar in Sydney. So yeah, I guess it justifies my need to try it out. :D

Makoto is good. As good as Sushi Tei at Vivocity back in Singapore. Maybe a little more sophisticated in their presentation of food. However, to me, Japan is so infinitely better. (I am biased.) Makoto is very wallet-hurting too. I spent $32.50 in total. There goes my allowance for the week. :Q I ordered the $25 special set which is in the last two pictures. It has a big platter of nigiri sushi and a seafood miso soup. I also shared a spider maki and a salmon belly sushi with Cynthia. It was way too much for the both of us. Waayyyy tooo muucchh.

Overall, the fish was fresh. They didn't compromise on the quantity of the ingrediants either. But one drawback was they used too much condiments on the sushi. Perhaps Makoto did it to cater to the palette of Sydney but I think you shouldn't overpower the fresh ingrediants of the sushi with lots of mayonaise or tonkatsu sause or whatever. It defeats the purpose of eating sushi anyway. So there. Makoto for youu. :D

Makoto- City
119 Liverpool St. (Cnr Pitt & Liverpool St.) Sydney NSW 2000
T: (02) 9283 6767 F: (02) 9283 6775
Open 7 days from 5.30pm
*Best to go early to avoid that super queue which starts to get really long by 6.30pm

End.

Tarte Tarti, Creme Brulee.

I am lagging in posts. So many posts behind time. haha. I am going to do it all today! yes! Okayy, liver looking pear tart was yesterday. Today, we've got baby poop looking tarte tartin. A banana tarte and a apple tarte. Tart tartin generally means a puff pastry base with baked fruits on top. Traditionally it is done with apples but in the modern world, you can put anything on it, pineapple, peaches, prunes, apricots, figs, blah blah.

Banana tarte tartin was something extra Chef Micheal made. Looks great and taste better than the apple tarte tartin. Ofcourse, the more ripe the bananas, the sweeter the tarte, hence better tasting. We've only got half green bananas. --_--

The real baby poopy tarte tartin. haha. Taste great too.

You bake the apples on a bed of sugar and butter, then you bake your puff pastry base. Put them together, you get tarte tartin!
+

Creme Brulee. Burnt sugar. Taste like egg yolks when hot, eew. On the other hand, taste like heaven when chilled. End.

Poached pear tart.

Poached pear tart for Tuesday. It is a rather troublesome pastry because it takes two days to prepare it. But the process of making it is quite simple to carry out. So, haha, I shouldn't complain. :D This flat little thing consist of a short pastry crust, pastry cream, dacquoise base ( A dacquoise is a dessert cake made with layers of nut meringue and whipped cream or buttercream. -wikipedia) and ofcourse, pear poached in red wine. 4 different parts put together to give a lovely tart. It is quite a nice tart, sweet and full of flavour, thanks to the red wine.

Here, Chef Karin put pistachio nuts and almond nuts on the rim of the tart so as to be different from others. The contrasting colours of the pears and nuts do give a pleasing effect.

Hohoho, this is my tart. I was so unfocused that day. I spoilt my pastry cream by forgeting to add cornflour to it and as a result I stayed too long on the fire. Burnt my cream. haha. Then the bring-over effect starts. Because I wasted too much time on my pastry cream, I didn't get to make the dacquoise base myself (my bench mates did it for me). Then I think I lost my nerves somewhere, and lost that self-confidence completely. I over-worked my short pastry dough (my pastry dough was very fine at the beginning!) following all my other friends. I knew I shouldn't work it too much, but everyone was doing the same. haha, so I guess I succumbed to peer pressure. Lesson learnt: always trust your instinct. Anyway, my pear tart turned out fine. Pretty even. heehee. :D

The Book Kitchen

I am on a food hunt. And I am loving every minute of it! Ofcourse, except for the payment part. Every time I see dollar bills part from me, I feel sad. But other than that, I am extremely fine. Sydney has some very good cafes. :D

On Ja's recommendation, we came to the book kitchen on Monday morning. (No school on Monday since it is Queen Victoria's Birthday.) I heard it is a pretty famous cafe in Sydney. It supposedly took the concept of putting up a library of cookbooks in the cafe from England and introduced it to Sydney. And apparently it became a hit with the locals and that is why there is even a queue on a rainy Monday. I've got a pretty high expectation of this cafe. It didn't disappoint me either. heehee. I bet you guys would want to visit this cafe after seeing the food. :D

The cafe. It has interior sitting and alfresco area. But I don't think you get to choose much since the queue is quite tight. It is either you take or you wait.

Cabinets of books. They are all cookbooks. They've even got more cookbooks than Singapore's national library. I don't see Jamie Oliver though.

We were famished! I woke up late in the morning and caused the delay in the meeting time. (Sorry!) Plus all the walking to find this cafe, queue time and waiting for the food time, my stomach just keeps wailing.

I found the organic cola brand! This time I had ginger beer. Taste great too. It even had ginger bits at the bottom. Ja and Stella had mocha (one skinny, one full cream), which look the same. Ja commented that the mocha had too much foam. Thick layered foam is reserved only for cappuccino.

You cannot imagine how hungry I was. I went straight for the kill and ordered a steak on rye topped with harissa beetroot accompanied with fries and onion rings. $19. Awesome.Stella's crabcake with pickles at the side. Taste good too.

I like this one. It is quite a popular item. Poached egg, avocado and ricotta cheese on sourdough with rocket salad. Ja's.

Seok had a Caesar salad with pickled mackeral and grilled pork belly. That is his orange juice.

A main course each is not enough for all of us. haha. We can eat alot! My chef keeps telling me I will get fat sooner or later. Not likely! heehee. Desssert next! We shared one these darlings below. Berries and white chocolate muffin.

A ricotta chocolate cake and a orange almond cake.

This is what I call a complete meal. :D oh, we went for creme brulee tart on the opposite street after. haha.

End.