Collins Kitchen

Collins Kitchen

123 Collins Street

Melbourne 9653 4831

You've probably seen it around on other Melbourne food blog sites, recently a whole bunch of food bloggers were invited to The Grand Hyatt to check out Collins Kitchen, courtesy of the guys from Nuffnang. I'm a little bit of a food blogging novice, even though I've been doing this for a year - its still a shock and surprise to me that I get to do something so awesome and meet some incredible people. So for most of the night I was pretty awe struck.

First up Jason, the head chef, took us on a walking tour of their brand spanking new kitchen. Oh what I would give to have a play around the place. I have no actual cooking talent - but for an hour or so I could feel like a real chef. Here are a couple of happy snaps I took.

Selection of fresh produce with some great fresh wasabi from Tasmania.

The chef preparing some grated wasabi

Its the three Musketeer crabs, one for all and all for claw!!

Hand operated meat slicer, for a cool $10,000 I can get one for my home kitchen

There's been some fantastic posts so far (check out the list at the bottom of this post), with some even more fantastic photography. So I'll keep the details to a minimum and concentrate on the dishes that I really enjoyed. The guys in the kitchen really put on an awesome spread for us, here are the dishes we tried.

Selection of sushi and sashimi, with freshly grated wasabi. Nothing more to say other than fantastic fresh wasabi, straight from Tasmania.

Focaccia; tomato buffalo mozzarella, basil and olives. Oh yum!! Being a good little Italian girl....anything doughy and smattered in tomato and cheese is a winner for me. Loved it. It wasn't overly fancy, just simple and satisfying. The cheese was still hot when I dug in and for a moment I was sitting at the table all by myself, despite being surrounded by people. Oh how the simple things in life make me so happy.

Antipasto plate; Air dried Wagyu, San Daniele Prosciutto and rockmelon, grilled veggies, pickles, liverwurst terrine or pate, tomatoes topped with buffalo mozzarella and basil. Stand out for me was the air dried Wagyu, it was silky, beefy and not too dry.

Grilled meats: Soy chicken, roast duck, crispy pork belly and char siu. The crispy pork was a stand out for me, but I'm a sucker for some fat topped with crispy skin.

Grilled seafood: Scallops, salmon, prawns, tuna and Moreton Bay bugs or Balmain bugs. The scallops were so good, they looked like fat little pocket of joy, slightly grilled surface with a soft and yielding inside. I would have gladly had a full plate of them. There was also a massive plate of grain fed beef which I managed to forget to take a photo of, along with a side of spectacular sauteed mushrooms and creamy mash potatoes.

Dessert: Banana Millefeuille, Peach Melba, Rhubarb with an accompanying pot of creme anglaise, 4 different types of sorbets - strawberry, pistachio, passionfruit and vanilla, melty gooey Chocolate Fondant. By far my favourite plate of food on the night. I'm easily swayed by sweet stuff, so I'm slightly bias. There were a couple of stand outs, the passionfruit sorbet knocked my socks off. I love ice cream/sorbet/gelato that tastes of the fruit it promises, and boy did it deliver. Tart and punchy, perfect summer ice cream. The Banana millefeuille, up until that night I had only ever tried vanilla, so it was a new experience for me. I really enjoyed the banana puree through the luscious cream. It was great. And the best of all, the chocolate fondant. Oh it was divine, the center was runny and hot, there was a generous amount of chocolate ice cream on top and it was great. I just wish that I had finished my meal on that chocolate fondant and not taken another bite.

All in all it was a great night. It was wonderful to be invited to something like this and I need to say a big thank you to the Grand Hyatt, the team at Collins Kitchen and of course the guys from Nuffnang.

David and Sarah @ Nuffnang - review here

Shellie @ Iron Chef Shellie - review here

Penny @ Addictive & Consuming - review here

Joyce @ Jetsetting Joyce - review here and here

Adrian @ Food Rehab - review here

Thanh @ I Eat Therefore I Am - review here

Billy @ Half Eaten - review here

Mellie and Dan @ Tummy Rumbles

Suzanne @ EssJay Eats - review here

Neil @ At My Table

Agnes @ Off the Spork

Sarah @ Sarah Cooks

Grilled Chicken with Cannellini and Garlic Puree

There's nothing worst then having a hard day at work and then coming home to cook a complicated meal. For me, if its easy, takes less than 20 minutes to cook then I'm interested! All I need to do is train Daz to wash the dishes and then I'd be set.

This recipe is simple, straight forward and super quick. I make it from time to time when I have little inspiration and cant be stuffed putting effort into making our weeknight meal. The secret to this dish, if there is one, is to make sure that you have good quality chicken. Nothing worse then biting into a piece of chicken that doesn't taste like chicken. You could substitute the chicken for fish, pork or even some char grilled vegetables.

As you can see from my photos, I love pepper. So whenever I make this I add a generous amount of pepper, so much so that it should be called Grilled Pepper Chicken. For presentation purposes I probably should have used white pepper, but I've never one to be logical.

Grilled Chicken with Cannellini and Garlic Puree

Serves 2

Ingredients

2 medium sized chicken breast, skin off

1 can of cannellini beans

1 medium brown onion

1 head of garlic

50 mL cream

olive oil

Method

1. Preheat oven at 180C. Break garlic into individual cloves, leaving skin on. Chop onion into quarters, leaving the skin on. Place in a shallow baking tray and toss with a little olive oil. Bake in over for 15 minutes, or until onion and garlic becomes soft.

2. Remove from oven, peel garlic and onion and place in the bowl of a food processor. Wash and drain cannellini beans and add to food processor. Add cream (if you would like to be healthy you can omit the cream and add a little extra olive oil). Process until all combined. Add a drizzle of olive oil until mixture becomes smooth, roughly 2-3 tablespoons. Add salt and pepper to taste.

3. Sprinkle chicken breast fillets with salt and pepper and rub a little olive oil into flesh. Heat grill pan until smoking and grill chicken beast. Depending on the size of the chicken breast it may take 5-8 minutes each side. Pay particular attention to not over cooking the breast. Once cooked, remove from pan and allow to rest for 2-3 minutes.

4. To arrange on plate, add a generous amount of puree, add chicken breast and top with crispy sage (I couldn't be bother crisping mine, so just put fresh sage on top)

Cupcake Fun!

Its been a while since my last Cupcake fun! update, and boy have there been a few cupcake floating about. Unfortunately the more I try to ignore cupcakes, the more they jump out at me. I've been so good, I haven't eaten or baked a cupcake in close to 2 months. That might be a factor as to why I've been seeing them so frequently in everyday life. Sometimes cupcakes seem to appear in the most peculiar of places. So here is another installment of cupcake fun!!

A little while ago I noticed that weight watchers had a new spokes person. No it wasn't a reformed overweight celebrity, but none other then our frosted friend the cupcake. Not my first choice as a slimming ambassador, but who am I to deny it the spotlight.

At first I thought it was an honour, and then it dawned on me that they are portrayed as the evil enemy...yes I am a little slow at picking things up. So my excitement soon gave way to sadness, cupcakes are NOT evil, they are sweet and tasty. But I guess when you have a little extra weight to lose, you tend to blame anything that you can.....and cupcakes don't fight back. According to the ad, they come in peace, personally I like them in pieces....in my tummy!!

For months I had been logging into my hotmail account only to be greeted by a little cupcake asking me if I fancied something sweet. So one day I clicked on it....what? it was 3.30pm...I needed sugar. I expected to be taken to delicious and tempting cupcake recipes, instead I stumbled upon bland biscuits and uninspiring cakes, sigh....sadly there is no substitute for a cupcake.

Next, a random tea towel I found. I needed o buy some tea towels for work and went hunting, somehow the cupcakes just find me!! So I promptly purchased half a dozen cupcake tea towels.

If you wash yourself with cupcake soap, you end up smelling like a cupcake right?? Well that's my theory and I'm sticking to it. If you could smell like any cupcake what would it be? I think I'd chose blueberry, for no other reason than sometimes I feel like Violet Beauregarde.

I'm not the only one obsessed with cupcakes you know. I've noticed that my local council has gone a little cupcake nutty too. I noticed that the most recent theater guide has feature a few good looking cupcakes gracing the front cover. I flipped and flipped, searching every show listed and did not find one single show which was cupcake related, yes I was a little disappointed. How cool would it be if Hamlet killed his uncle by means of cupcake!! Theater never sounded so good!!

Our local council also has children's shows, so cupcakes make an appearance here too. Thankfully those are the names of the shows and not suggested cupcake flavours. Don't think I'd like to try a wombat stew cupcake!!

And last, and definitely my favourite was the most unexpected cupcake appearance of all time. On a lazy Sunday night Daz and I decided to watch a horror movie. Nothing like a whole load of laughing, horror movies are funny right?? Anyway, we watched Drag me to Hell and who did I see.....Miss Cupcake!! And I'm pretty sure the guy in the left hand corner is chomping into a very heavily frosted cupcake. Since we were watching a horror movie I kinda scared Daz, as soon as I saw the cupcakes I let out an almighty scream, of course Daz wasn't expecting it.

Cupcakes are so integrated into our society they seem to go unnoticed. I'll try my hardest to seek them out and make them visible for everyone to see. You can see other installments of cupcake fun here and here.

La Luna and Flying High

La Luna Bistro320 Rathdowns StreetCarlton North, (03) 9349 4888

Recently Daz celebrated his 28th birthday. Hes always looking for a thrill, he absolutely loves flying and would probably order steak at any given chance, so I decided to get him something that he would never forget, an acrobatic flying session and dinner at La Luna. I thought about getting him steak to eat inside the plane but thought that the pilot might get a little distracted, who knows he may have wanted one for himself!

The dinner almost didn't happen. After his 40 minute gut flipping, intense and sweaty flying escapade, he felt so sick that we almost called the dinner off, the actual flying didn't make him sick so much, it was the straight but long drive back from Traralgong that made his head woozy. Luckily a quick snooze and a dose of medication.....downed with a ginger beer set him straight and we set off for meat.

We started the meal with a few oysters. Nothing better than chewing into that fresh meaty flesh to get all the stomach juices flowing.

Next we had House made cured meats, on this night it was Prosciutto, with poached pear, extra virgin olive oil & crispy croutons. The meat was nice and fresh. V1 had never had good quality prosciutto before and by the end of this dish I suspect she will no longer be buying her cured ham from the Coles deli.

Also for entree we shared a Double baked cheese soufflé with garlic croutons. This was so good. The souffle was so light, you could even see the beautiful big air pockets withing the souffle. I make my own version of this, but mine comes no where near the caliber of this dish. It was delicious, unsurprisingly it disappeared very quickly.

For mains the boys went for the meat. Surprise surprise. La Luna prides themselves on aging their meat on premises, and only have a few cuts available on each night. On this particular night the boys got a scotch fillet, Char-grilled with a creamy buttery mash and pepperonata. I asked the waiter if it was possible to bring Daz's plate with a sprig of parsley on top....considering it was his birthday he should get a dish with a little more effort right? The chefs were so sweet that they actually put the parsley on his steak, class all the way. The boys both jumped into their steaks and all you could hear were moans of enjoyment. So I'm guessing that they liked their steaks.

When I was looking at the menu at home I had decided that I would get the Crackling wrapped loin of roast pork, mash, cabbage, apple salad, red wine jus. When it came to ordering, ALL the girls wanted this dish, so being me AND a food blogger I changed my mind and ordered something else......BIG MISTAKE!! The pork was fantastic. The crackling was so crispy, the apple salad was tart and complimentary to the pork. I don't know weather I was dreaming, but when I had a taste, the pork tasted like it had been marinated it lemon zest, it added such a nice undertone. I think I will try that myself at home. Everyone felt so sorry for me that I had changed my mind that they all gave me a bite from their plate. I think all those small bites combined equaled a whole pork dish in itself. Maybe I should try that more often and get a free meal by just eating a small amount from everyones plate.

As a side we ordered some Sautéed kipfler potatoes, garlic & parsley. They were really nice, however I think everyone was too distracted by their main dishes. The potatoes ended up hanging around until dessert. We tried to convince the waitress that we were going to eat them, but sadly I think more than half remained in the bowl.

I got the john dory fillets with a vegetable salad. I enjoyed the dish, not so much for the actual fish, but the vegetable salad was really good. The squash was cooked so tenderly, but still had a firm bite. I could have happily had an entire plate of that salad. Although the dish was very good, it was still no pork!!

Dessert!! Oh dessert was SOOOO good. I thoroughly recommend going for their cakes if you are having a birthday at La Luna. Cakeage costs $4.50 per person, or $70 for a cake of your choice that they make on premises. I went with the second choice, for 2 reasons really. 1) less fuss if they handle the whole cake thing and 2) it would probably cost me $70 for a cake in the first place PLUS cakeage. I went with a Bombe Alaska, everyone loves a little danger and who doesn't like ice cream? The cake was delicious!! The outside was so fluffy and marshmallowy, followed by a thin layer of vanilla sponge, then a rich creamy ice cream dotted with crunchy toffee. The birthday boy loved it, and so did all the guests, so it was a win win situation. The staff at La Luna were fantastic, they cut the remaining cake into portions, and each of the guests got some to take home. Once again another great touch.

On the night our group was extremely loud, and dare I say a little obnoxious - mainly me!! But the staff were fantastic, I really can not rave about them enough. I've seen some bad reviews concerning La Luna, but I think the old saying "you gotta try it for yourself" is totally true here. I'll be back for sure, probably to order the pork and a Bombe alaska to myself.

Pavlova

This year for Australia Day we did something very traditional, we ate Pavlova and threw thongs. It was such a lovely day that we decided to have a few friends over for a bbq and of course, beers. The day was fantastic, the sun shone and the beers were cool, just the way I like them.

We feasted on our bbq and then held the first annual thong throwing competition. Now, my backyard is not massive by any stretch of the imagination, so the good old throng throwing competition where the furthest thong wins was probably not a good idea. Just for the shear fact that the neighbors probably would have gotten annoyed if we kept coming over to retrieve our wayward thongs. So instead I came up with a cleaver plan, it would involve concentration and accuracy. I set a bucket up a fair distance from the thrower, and whomever got the most amount of thongs into the bucket would win. You would think the person who invented the game would be fairly hard to beat.....sadly I was an easy walkover, and was only beaten to last place by Daz. But I suspect he threw the game because he knew last place was in for a cherry ripe!

The winner was announced, after a sudden death face off. Some how no one else had managed to get any thongs into the bucket, except for Miss Coco Chanel and Mad Scientist who both managed to get three in each. After a nail biting last round, Miss Coco Chanel came out the victor.

We then all went inside to the comfort that only air conditioning can give on a hot summers day and devoured an entire Pavlova. You can tell a pavlova is good when the only thing you can hear is the crunch of the crispy shell and muffled moans coming from the eaters. I was pretty pleased with myself, the actual Pavlova looked magazine worthy and the inside was just perfect, marshmellowy and heavenly. Daz thought that the crispy shell needed to be thicker, but I guess you cant pleased everyone. The only thing that would have made the Pavlova better was if it was covered in ice cream, I don't know if it would still be technically a Pavlova if it was covered in ice cream.

Pavlova (I used a Donna Hay recipe with a few very minor modifications)

Serves 8–10.

INGREDIENTS

150ml eggwhite (approximately 4 eggs)

Pinch of cream of tartar and

Pinch of Salt

1 cup (220g) caster (superfine) sugar

2 tablespoons cornflour (cornstarch), sifted

2 teaspoons white vinegar

1 cup (250ml) single (pouring) cream

½ cup passionfruit pulp (approximately 4 passionfruit)

250g strawberries, hulled and halved

Preheat oven to 150°C (300°F).

METHOD

1. Place the eggwhite in the bowl of an electric mixer with cream of tartar and salt, whisk until stiff peaks form. Gradually add the sugar, whisking well, until the mixture is stiff and glossy. This may take a while, at least 5 minutes

2. Add the cornflour and vinegar and whisk until just combined. Shape the mixture into an 18cm round on a baking tray lined with non-stick baking paper. Reduce oven to 120°C (250°F) and bake for 1 hour 20 minutes.

3. Turn the oven off, open the oven door and leave ajar and allow the pavlova to cool completely in the oven.

4. Whisk the cream until soft peaks form. Spread over the pavlova, top with passionfruit and strawberries and serve immediately.

* You’ll know when the meringue is stiff and glossy because the mixture will have tripled in volume and stands up when the beaters are lifted.

* The low heat puffs up the meringue while the long cooking time dries it out to give you a lovely crisp shell.

* Store your pavlova, undressed, in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.

Sung's Kitchen

Sung's Kitchen

118 Frankling Street, Melbourne

Recently, I had the pleasure of dining with a few special guests, it was my first food bloggers dinner. Conor from Hold the Beef had come over from Perth to watch some Australia Open action and decided to get together with some Melbourne bloggers for some action of the non-sporting kind.....eating. There was April from My food Trail, Michele from Iron Chef Shellie, Penny from Addictive and Consuming and Agnes from Off the Spork. Penny had suggested Sungs Kitchen and what a great recommendation it was.

It was so pleasant to be in the company of fellow food bloggers. I suspected I wasn't the only one who took photographs of menus and was extremely glad to see that I wasn't the only one who suffers from short term memory loss. Sadly, I forgot to take a photo of the menu at Sung's and have no idea what each dish is except for what I suspect it is made from. I'll try to do my best to include as much detail of the dish as possible, but it might be an idea to keep an eye on some of the other blogs for more precise information.

We started with the crab. Some big old mud crab with a nice eggy noodle below. Nothing better than meeting people for the first time and flicking them in the eye with some crab shell. Luckily, it managed to keep my crab shells to myself. The crab was good, a great sign is when there is very little talking going on, and once everyone dug into their dish there was silence.



We had all ordered a dish each. There was a tea smoked duck. The duck was nice and moist and the sauce was pretty delicious too.



I'm not exactly sure what type of prawn hot pot/clay pot this was, but there was a fair bit of chilli in it, just the way I like it. It packed a neat punch, just enough to get your saliva going and keep you appetite ticking over.



The description of the Hunan Pork spare ribs was pretty interesting, and Daz and I just had to order it. "if you like salt and spicy, than this dish is a must try". The pork was crispy and crunchy, the veggies were a nice accompaniment. There was massive piece of chilli flaked through the entire dish. Poor Daz must have grab the only extremely hot piece and attempt to eat it. That didn't stop him though, he was back for more straight away.



There were also some chicken wings, and a nice plate of veggies. I have no other explanation other than they were pretty good.





After the main course everyone was neither hungry nor full, so we tempted the true expansion of our stomachs and ordered dessert. The dessert menu was a bit of a mystery. There were desserts that had pumpkin, egg white, banana fritters that came complete with corn flakes - when a dessert becomes a breakfast item, and even Peking soffle balls. No, I didn't spell that incorrectly. We all assumed that the soffle balls were a nice play on the traditional souffle. So we had to try it. When they arrived at the table we were all a little surprised. April even said that they shouldn't be called soffle balls, but instead soft balls!! They were truly big enough!





They were filled with red bean paste and banana. The skins were nice and crispy with the insides fluffy. They tasted a little eggy and doughy to me, I probably wouldn't order them again, but it was a great novelty.



Here are a selection of other desserts that were tried.






Sung's kitchen was a great place to finally meet some of my fellow bloggers, and now I can finally say I know what a soffle ball is!!