Taxing Dining Room

Dining Date: August 2009

2009 Rating: 87th

2009 Star rating: 1

Chef: Michael Lambie

Location: Level 1, Transport Hotel, Federation Square, Cnr Flinders & Swanston Streets

Melbourne Victoria

Website: www.transporthotel.com.au

Taxi dining room is located at federation square in the heart of the Melbourne CBD. We ventured out to the city on a particularly nice day, the sun was shining, the weather was warm and I was feeling flirty. So I put on a dress and some nice high heels. It seemed life the rest of Melbourne had the exact same idea and everyone was heading for the city. The traffic was a nightmare and we ended up parking a mile away. My feet are still angry with me! We were late, and I HATE being late. We practically sprinted to the restaurant from the car park, at least once we got to the location we could sit down and relax. I was really worried that they would have given our table away. We were having another winter express meal and he session times are pretty strict. Luckily the table was still waiting for us, and there was no need to chow down at lightening speed.

Taxi has a great atmosphere, laid back while still being funky and modern. The views across the river or city, depending on where you sit, are breath taking. I'm in love with the city of Melbourne and can never bore from seeing the tree lined Yarra river, or the towering sky scrapers. I managed to take a couple of shots of the interior of the restaurant before my camera battery decided it had enough, its funny how batteries require regular charging. Thanks to modern technology my pocket camera, which doubles as a mobile phone was all I had to document the meal. Apologies in advance for the crappy photos!

We started with a glass of wine each, Galli estate Pinot Grigio from Heathcote Victoria. The selection of what to have for entree and mains was limited, but I didn't mind. The quality of the overall meal was exceptional so I don't feel like I missed out at all.

We started with Panko crumbed brandade cake with spiced tomato jus. It came with a cold noodle salad on the side and I'm not quite sure what the other thing was. But it tasted delicious! Daz and I decided to share the entree and dessert at the end of the meal. As soon as I took my first bite, wished I had opted for my own main. The cake was so crunchy on the outside and beautifully fluffy within, such a joy to eat.

If the entree was nice, the main was heaven. I love a really good slow cooked piece of meat and the braised beef with mushrooms, bacon, pommes puree and red wine jus was fall apart perfect. We were given a knife that looked like a ice pick. It was so pointy and extremely sharp with menacing serrated edges, I thought it was hilarious as the dish could have been eaten with a spoon.

I loved the crispyness of the bacon. Everything on the place was so soft and juicy it needed something to contrast with so you could fully appreciate the texture. The crunchy bacon was such an awesome surprise when you took a mouth full of the creamy luscious mash. I was so extremely happy after eating this dish I think I had a meat-o-gasm.

We were sitting directly opposite the pass for the dessert section. Literally every minute 4 souffles would be whisked away to hungry customers. Looking at all those beautiful gravity defying souffles I had to have one for myself. We discovered that it was a Grand Marnier souffle with orange caramel and blood orange sorbet. The souffle was piping hot, so fluffy that when you put it n your mouth it disappeared. But the absolute stand out for me was the sorbet. I could have a massive bowl of that sorbet on its own, then ordered another for dessert. It was so tasty, the true flavour of orange was right there on your palette, it filled your mouth and was so tangy and sweet that it made my mouth water while I was eating it! Something that doesn't happen often to me.

After we devoured the entire thing I contemplated licking the plate, no jokes. So I moved the cup that the souffle was baked in and unwittingly discovered Taxi's secret anchoring system. We all know that a lot of restaurants use sauces or puree's to stick down food to the plate, but did you know they use pieces of cake? Underneath the cup was a perfectly circular piece of cake. It was ingenious, no slipping and fits snuggly in place. The thought of eating the cake crossed my mind, but then I thought it probably wasn't intended t be eaten so might give it a miss.

Overall I liked Taxi Dining Room. I thought all the dishes I tried were well executed, some even presented with a little flare. I would definitely go back to sampling some of their dishes other dishes.

Cupcake Fun!

With all the cupcake fun going around the blogging world lately*, I thought I would join in too, I was supposed to bake my very own batch of cupcakes for the RSPCA cupcake day, but worksafe got in the way. I've been trawling the inter-of-the-net and made do with drooling over everyone's fantastic creations. There's even been a new discovery in the tiny cake world, the first ever reported siting of the muffcake! If I cant bake myself, at least I can live vicariously through others in the comfort of my own cushioned seat.

Lately I've noticed something curious, well maybe not recently.....I've only just started documenting it. Every where I look there are cupcakes, and not just the cupcakes of the baked variety, cupcakes in every shape and form. Here are a couple of fun photos I've taken over the last few weeks that are cupcake related. Please excuse the quality of the photo's, they're all taken on my mobile phone.

The first is from Spotlight, all things fabric and home deco. This was a treasure trove for cupcake paraphernalia. There was a kitchen timer in the shape of a cupcake, which I sadly didn't take a photo of and I found various cup cake mugs and dishes

I even found a cupcake place mat!

At Riot they had a gorgeous cupcake stand made entirely out of glitter and Styrofoam. I seriously wanted to bite into one of these! After asking if I could take a photo, one of the sales assistants said it was a great idea to entertain kids with. Buy a whole heap of Styrofoam balls and make cupcakes.....yeah.....thats why I'M taking a photo, tips on how to entertain children. Little did they know I was the massive kid with a cupcake fetish. I got out pretty quick after that.

I saw a cupcake trapped in the Eiffel tower in a gift shop at Chadstone. Wish I had taken a photo, is was so freaking funny. But my favourite of all is left until last. Today I was at Boarders on one of my frequent trips to drool over cookbooks I may want to purchase if I win lotto, or a very sick rich old lady dies and leaves me all her money. Where do you find these?.....off track....anyway I was trying to keep a low profile in the bakery section when I looked up and noticed they were filed away under "diet". Holy mother of goat, the fitness industry has finally come to their senses and made....'the cupcake diet!' I did not touch a thing and at least 4 titles were facing outwards and featured cupcakes on the cover. After taking the photo I delved a little deeper and found more cupcake books on the shelf. Freakin awesome!!

I'll continue to keep an eye out for cupcaky-ness and bring you another instalment soon!

* Some of the most inspiring creations come from the most humble blogs;

Agnes from Off The Spork

Conor from Hold The Beef

Stephcookie from Raspberry Cupcakes

Lilia from My Sweethearts Bakery

Sharon from We Love Baking

Kat from Kats Creations

Lorraine From Not Quite Nigella

Trissalicious from Not Another Food Blog

The guys at Koali Life

Rilsta from My Food Trail

Results - Savoy Cabbage, Pine Nut, Raisin and Pecorino Insalata

I was once a avid hater of raw cabbage, now I'm a convert. And it was all because of this recipe! There are a couple of things that I've learnt during the time that I've had this blog, making macarons is not fun and cabbage can actually taste good when uncooked. I think that is a massive bonus to this recipe too, there is absolutely no cooking required, that is if you don't count toasting bread crumbs in the oven as cooking.

To be honest you dont need any skill to make this recipe either. Its just a whole heap of chopping, slicing and arranging. Most of the effort is required when eating it, another bonus in my book! There's very little clean up too! I only made a half batch of the recipe and it made quite a bit, I had left overs for lunch the next day. The bread crumbs were a little soggy on day two, but the salad cream was delicious soaked into the beard crumbs!

Chop your cabbage

Toast your crumbs

Put it all in a bowl....

Then toss! "Now, you shake it to the left. You shake it to the right. Do the Hippy Shake Shake.. With all of your might!"

On the night that I made it, I didn't really feel like eating meat, which happens from time to time. Daz was pretty annoyed at that, being a red blooded male if there isn't something that either moo-ed, baah-ed or oink-ed on his plate for dinner....he still feels hungry, regardless of how big the meal might be. So I braved the elements (Daz at cranky level 9 is like sitting through a storm!), and dished up the cabbage with a soft centred fried egg on top. He loved it. The only way I can get away with not serving meat is by substituting egg, and with the runny center going all over the cabbage it was like having extra sauce. It was pretty good. I can imaging this salad being pretty tasty at an afternoon bbq, a couple of beers to wash down the cabbage would be extra nice.

Savoy Cabbage, Pine Nut, Raisin and Pecorino Insalata

Restaurant: Buzo Restaurant (NSW)

Recipe from Chefs Todd Garratt and James Hird (Hopefully not the Essendon Bombers James Hird) (appeared on Attica website earlier this year)

2009 Rating: Number 90, 1 Star

I've never been a fan of coleslaw. Coming from an Italian background, all my exposure to cabbage has been of the cooked variety, so exploring raw cabbage is somewhat of a novel experience to me. I had half a head of savoy cabbage in the fridge and I wanted to use it, preferably something different to my usual braised cabbage. So I turned to my trusty friend gourmet traveller.

Savoy cabbage, pine nut, raisin and pecorino insalata

Serves 6

Cooking Time Prep time 15 mins

100 gm Iranian raisins (see note)

125 ml (½ cup) marsala

600 gm (about ½) savoy cabbage, thinly sliced

1-2 tbsp white balsamic or white wine vinegar

100 gm (2/3 cup) pine nuts, toasted

100 gm sourdough breadcrumbs, torn into 5mm pieces and toasted

80 gm pecorino, finely grated

4 cups (loosely packed) flat-leaf parsley leaves

Salad cream

4 egg yolks

2 tbsp white wine vinegar

2 tsp Dijon mustard

300 ml olive oil

100 ml pouring cream

1. Place raisins in a bowl and pour in marsala to cover, cover and stand overnight.

2. For salad cream, process egg yolks, vinegar and mustard in a food processor until combined, then gradually add oil in a thin, steady stream until emulsified. Transfer to a small bowl, stir through cream and season to taste with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Refrigerate until needed. Salad cream will keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.

3. Combine cabbage and vinegar in a bowl, toss to coat and stand for 10 minutes.

4. Drain raisins, discarding marsala, and add to cabbage with pine nuts and half the breadcrumbs, pecorino and parsley. Add salad cream, toss gently to combine and season to taste. Serve immediately scattered with remaining breadcrumbs, pecorino and parsley.

Note Iranian raisins are available from specialty food stores or see www.pariya.com for stockists. If unavailable substitute with seedless raisins.

Esposito

Date: August 2009

2009 Rating: 75th

2009 Star rating: 1

Chef: Maurice Esposito

Location: 162 Elgin Street, Carlton, Victoria

Website: www.espositofood.com

Its been a while since my last top 100 visit, and this month I've managed to visit a few, thanks in part to the Put Victoria on the Table promotion. Earlier this week we moseyed on down to Esposito @ Toofeys. Esposito is renowned for his seafood so I at least knew what I wanted for my main, something fishy.

The decore and atmosphere was actually quite lovely, there was only one problem. Jonquils! I HATE Jonquils, don't get me wrong, I think they are very pretty, but they smell horrid! I would not immediately pair the smell of Jonquils with mouth watering dishes, but on the other hand I really dislike them, the next person to walk through the door may love them. So its hardly something I can complain about.

We started the meal with a complementary appetiser. I love it when the chef takes the time to come up with something that each of his/her diners receives before they start their meal. Its even better when that little something extra tastes awesome! We received a tiny little dish filled with mixed herbs including tarragon, mint, dill, parsley, fennel and spring onion all combined in a mustard dressing. It was delicious, great way to kick things off.

We weren't particularly hungry so stuck to the two course dinner. For entree/main I had the John Dory fillets with kipfler potato and mud crab crush and artichoke tortellone. I enjoyed the dish. The crab/potato crush was by far my favourite, you could really taste the crab in the crush and it went really well with the crispy skin on the dory. The problem? The fish was extremely under seasoned and there was a tomato on my plate in the middle of winter. Enough said.

Daz had the Black Angus fillet steak with mushroom ragout, 50 year old balsamic vinegar and potato puree. The plate was quite pretty. Daz's reaction was that the dish was good, but not great.

For dessert I had the Hot date tart - Spiced frangipane with vanilla bean ice cream. I just couldn't resist the name of this dish and I just had to have the hot date for myself. I was pretty glad I did. There was some slight confusion and my date went to another table, would have been understandable if it had been a blind date. By the time it reached me, the ice cream had melted quite a bit. The pastry was flaky and it definitely lived up to its name, piping hot with the nice thick layer of date. Hmmm yum!

The end of Daz's meal was a bit more cheesy than mine. He had Pyengana cheddar, toasted fruit bread and house of Hines quince paste. I had a little nibble of his cheddar and it was pretty good. Crumbly and sweet, too bad the fruit bread was more like toast.

Esposito was nice, I wish I had a chance to try more of the seafood, so another visit is needed.

Bastille Day Wrap Up - Macarons and Truffles

Yay, after all my procrastination, I am finally up to the last instalment of the Bastille Day epic. And what a good one it is. It involves tears, catastrophic failure....multiple ones, booze, dizzying heights of joy and finally exhaustion, and that's only the macarons! So I think that's probably the best place to start. When I received my June issue of Gourmet Traveller with the gorgeous macarons on the front cover, I knew immediately what I would have for petit fours. So I did what any fellow food blogger would do, I hit the blogs. I wanted to find out what everyone else's experience with the tasty macarons was. Duncan @ syrup and tang has a great resource, and he truly knows what hes talking about, for sheer beauty I turned to Ellie @ Kitchen Wench and her beautiful macarons, a few sound tips from Julia @ Melanger and a good old belly laugh from Rilsta @ My Food Trail and her macaron sunglasses, I'm sure the first in the world!

Many years ago I baked my first macaron, resulting in a massive failure. 2009 was the year to give it another go. So first thing first, trial run for the big day, I chose Duncan's macarons au sucre cuit recipe. I weighed my ingredients, made my batter, piped them out and then put the little ones in the oven and out they came - hard as a rock and looking nothing like french macarons. Little did I know that my scales were registering ZERO grams when in fact I had put in 50! So the next day I purchased a brand new shinny set of digital scales, and boy do I love them, they weigh things correctly....if only my bathroom scales were like my old kitchen scales!

Attempt two saw me under mix my batter, so I ended up with shells that weren't exactly shiny and they distinctly lacked the "feet" I was looking for. So onto attempt 3, this time I mixed them perfectly, they came out of the oven shiny and they even had feet....bonus score! But....and there is a BIG but, my ganache was not so good. I followed the gourmet traveller recipe, which was a big mistake. It turned out a little wet due to the whole pieces of raspberry, so by the following day my macarons had turned into a wet goopy mess. I had taken them into work to show off my new found skills and I ended up almost crying. I popped open the box and saw these.......

I try to pick one up and it turned into this.....

I officially hated macarons at that point. Because I'm a complete nutter, by late afternoon I had already resolved myself to trying one more time, the saying is 4th time lucky right???? This time I got it right! Woo hoo, go team me. I changed the ganache recipe, I made a thick raspberry syrup and added it to the ganache, and I was in macaron heaven! It only took me 4 goes, dozens of eggs and countless hours of my sanity. But it was all worth it in the end!

The second component of my petit fours were cointreau and chocolate truffles, thankfully these were alot easier than the macarons. Here is the recipe.

Cointreau and Chocolate Truffles

INGREDIENTS

250 ml pouring cream

425 gm dark chocolate buttons

50 ml cointreau

For dusting: Dutch-process cocoa

METHOD

1. Break chocolate up into small pieces and place in a bowl. Bring cream to the boil and pour over chocolate. Add alcohol and stir until smooth and glossy, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, but still workable.

2. Using two spoons, make quenelles and then return to refrigerator for 2 hours to set. Dust with cocoa powder and refrigerate overnight.

And so concludes the Bastille Day series, now we can all get back to real life.

Bastille Day Wrap Up - Almond Frangipane Tart with Toffee Pear

And now for another installment of the ongoing saga that was Bastille Day. For all you following along, we are now up to the dessert section of the meal. Let me tell you I am very impressed with myself with this little dessert. The images here are of my "experimental" tart. I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted to achieve, I just wanted to test whether it would come together well or if it was a massive flop. I cheated, again, and used ready-made shortcrust pastry for the trial. I knew I would use sweet almond pastry and that always works well, I just wasn't sure about the actual pear component of the tart.

I'm one of those people that always strikes it lucky when I cook something for the first time, well usually.....my macaron effort broke my lucky streak! Damn you macaron! But with this tart I wasn't overally confident. I wanted to achieve something that was restaurant quality, both in look and flavour. I had never used an oven to dehydrate fruit before, bread?....yes, cakes?...yes but dehydrated cakes are usually not the intended result. My dehydrated fruit turned out awesome, so much so I've been dehydrating up a storm! Its a perfect way to use that fruit that is so close to making it to the compost bin. The second part of the pear was dipping it in some toffee and getting a good crunch when biting into it. Chilling the toffee quite quickly after it is added to the pear achieves a nice teeth splitting crunch.

Jolly gosh was I stoked with myself. I served it up to the unsuspecting Daz and let him eat it without saying a word. After he had consumed the last crumb, I asked him, in the calmest voice I could muster, "do you think that is a restaurant recipe?or something I made myself?" Without a split second of a pause he said "Restaurant! No way that's you!" Score, mission accomplished.

When I served it at the party, everyone wanted more pear. I had made about 20 pear slices dipped in toffee, it was all gone....very quickly.

So here is my recipe for Almond frangipane tart with toffee pear.

Makes 8 tarlets

INGREDIENTS

For Dehydrated Pears/Toffee Pears

2 pears sliced thinly

100 g Castor sugar

For Sweet Almond pastry (this makes alot of pastry, but it freezes really well, just defrost in the fridge overnight to use again)

1¼ cups plain flour

1/3 cup pure icing sugar

¼ cup almond meal

125 g cold butter, coarsely chopped

1 egg yolk

For Almond Frangipane

80 g slivered almonds, lightly toasted

50 g butter

50 g pure icing sugar

50 g almond meal

1 tsp plain flour

1 egg, lightly whisked

20 ml port

To Garnish

Icing sugar to dust

Cream, whipped and flavoured with vanilla essence or vanilla beans

METHOD

For Dehydrated Pears/Toffee pears

1. Line a flat baking tray with some baking paper. Arrange the pear slices on the tray making sure that the slices do not overlap.

2. Place in the over with it at the lowest setting possible. Bake for about 4 hours or until dehydrated but still soft, i.e. not crunchy. Alternatively you can put the pear slices in a hot over, after its been turned off, and leave them in there overnight, similar to making dried bread crumbs.

3. Prepare a baking tray by lining it with some baking paper and putting it in the fridge to chill, this is important to get a very crunchy toffee. To make the toffee, place sugar in a small heavy based saucepan, add a few tablespoons of water, enough to wet the sugar. Heat over medium heat until toffee in colour and smell, remove from heat. Take tray from the fridge and working quickly, one by one, dip the half the dehydrated pear slice in the toffee. Place the slices on the tray and return to the fridge. Remember to be very careful as the toffee is extremely hot. Adriano Zumbo's tip of having a bowl of cool water near by is spot on. If you get a drop of the toffee on your fingers, quickly dip them in the water to solidify the toffee before it burns you.

For sweet almond pastry

1. Using a food processor, process dry ingredients until combined,

2 Add butter and process until fine crumbs form.

3. Add egg yolk and 1 tbsp cold water and process until mixture just forms a dough.

4. Dust a work surface with some flour and knead briefly to bring together. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

5. Preheat oven to 180C. Roll out pastry on a lightly floured surface to 5mm-thick, grease and flour the inside of 8 tartlet tins then line them with the pastry. Trim edges flush with sides. Prick base with a fork and bake blind until starting to colour (10-15 minutes). Make sure not to overcook the pastry or it will be dry and brittle

For Almond Frangipane

1. Combine icing sugar, almond meal and flour in a separate bowl

2.Beat butter in an electric mixer until pale and fluffy.With motor running, gradually add the dry mixture to butter until completely combined.

3.Add egg, beating well to combine, then slowly beat in port. Fold in the almonds.

Assembly

1. Spread frangipane in the tart cases. Make sure not to overfill as the frangipane will puff up some. Bake at 180C until slightly golden on top, about 10-15 minutes

This is what happens when you fill them too much

2. Once the tarts have cooled, turn them out and place on a plate. Dust the top with some icing sugar. Place a quenelle on top, sorry my quenelles are not as perfect as Gordon Ramsays! Shove a toffee pear slice in the middle. Hopefully it will stand unassisted!

You can make these in advance, especiall the pastry.